DonationCoder.com Software > Find And Run Robot
Feature Request Thread
cracksloth:
okay, let me discuss some ideas mouser and i have been throwing around. f&rr is great at what it does and it approaches the situation in a unique way that would be applicable to other situations. currently, it's primary use is to search through shortcuts and provide intelligent results based on a keyword. in actuality, there is nothing that restricts this usage to program shortcuts. f&r could also be used to find other types of files as well with virtually no impact on its current use. imagine wanting to play all music in your collection by Gomez. or finding your thesis from 2 years ago about all those smoking monkeys. or digging up your CV/resume on the spot when you need it. or quickly starting a movie from your collection just by typing in a few letters. or pulling up all your pictures that you took in germany. you get the idea. essentially anything can be found within f&r. the best way to do this would be to be able to load different configuration files for each type of search. for example, the mp3 config file would specify:
- the location of your mp3 folders,
- how you want those files rated,
- and how you want those results displayed.
there has been a great deal of discussion as to how would be the best way to switch between these different configurations. possibilities include:
- tabs
- a button bar
- commandline
- a drop down list
obviously, the commandline would be the most non-impact way to accomplish this. it has the advantage of being accessible from a number of different methods (scripting, shortcuts, 3rd party programs, etc.). the best use of the commandline is that users could setup an alias with all available configurations. hence, no additional gui is even necessary. i think the commandline option currently gets my vote because it is the easiest to implement and would leave more time for "serious" coding. down the line, alternate methods of switching configurations could be implemented if users request it.
if users use f&r to find files like shortcuts, documents, music, images, videos, etc. then it would be nice to be able to do more than simply launching a single result. in an example above, i mentioned searching for all music by "Gomez". f&r can find files quite well but once they are found, your options are limited. the best way around this is to implement the explorer right-click context menu. this will allow you to:
- select all of the results and queue them up in winamp
- adjust their id3 tags
- delete that song you just heard
- open a file in a non-default program
- rotate an image 90 degrees
honestly, you can do pretty much anything to the file. it is limited only by the shell extensions you have installed. this is a confirmed feature so it will be implemented. this ability to manipulate search results will make f&r very powerful.
what has already been discussed above should be top priority before worrying about the rest of what i am going to say.
okay, as we've already mentioned, the configuration files specify what to display in the f&r window. imagine being able to specify things other than a traditional search. in my opinion, it would be terribly useful to be able to display a mini file browser in f&r (displaying the contents of a folder). i am sure everyone who reads this uses directory structure to organize some file collections, whether that be music, documents, images, shortcuts, etc. sometimes, folder organization is the best way to organize files. for example, what if i wanted to:
- see all new files in my "incoming" folder
- see what was in my "recent documents"
- access to the control panel
- show the contents of my mp3 player
- display my quicklaunch folder
- organize and delete obsolete shortcuts in my start menu
- see some photos i placed in my "2004" folder
- or... well, you get the idea
the mini file browser would be a great complement to f&r. it is useful for quick file operations and to have quick access to any type of file that you have organized into folders (traditional searching by keyword would not be adequate). it would allow users to easily and efficiently delete, rearrange, and drag files into and out
of the minibrowser (like a regular instance of explorer). this is useful for quick and dirty management of documents, music, and shortcuts. luckily, this mini file browser is not as difficult to implement as one might imagine because it is possible to tie into the explorer engine for file display and file operations. the only thing that is needed is a small toolbar for back/forward, parent, and favorites. since, the minibrowser would only be loaded if specified in a config file, then this again would not impact the traditional user interface of f&r at all. if you do not use this feature then you will never see it. please note that this idea is slightly different than the idea of an attached file browser panel... and in my opinion, preferrable :)
as an added bonus of using the explorer engine, it would be possible for users to display web pages in f&r as well. some of you may be shaking your heads as this being unnecessary but i only mention it because the ability would be added automatically simply by virtue of using explorer. but, if a user wanted, they could create a favorite to their webmail for quick checking. users could check the local weather or movie listings. you could even play a quick flash game when the boss isn't looking. i would be most likely to use a tool like "amazing portal generator" to create a small launch portal to my most frequent sites. the program is found here:
http://www.rtgsoftware.com/apg/
users could create their own html page which could accomplish virtually anything limited only by their skill. we could even start a repository of useful html pages created and submitted by users. even if you don't like the idea, at least it is an added bonus of using explorer to make the minibrowser.
so although this sounds like a big feature, it should not be all that difficult or time consuming to implement.
so, in short, the ideas we have been talking about will have *no* affect on the f&r user interface (except the right-click menu but i think everyone likes that idea). so for people who like things the way they are, nothing will change but for the more adventuresome power users, there is an *incredible* increase in what you can do with f&r. so f&r is not being torn between two purposes, it can embrace both. you would simply be using the searching capabilities that already exist for broader purposes.
i am *king* of long posts!
-cracksloth
p.s. mouser, please disregard some of the advanced configuration features i explained in the email. they are unnecessary if a minibrowser is implemented and would probably just over-complicate things. if you want, when i have time i will re-edit it a bit to be more clear.
kfitting:
Very interesting ideas... FindRun is turning more into FindExplorer! I dont see this as an inherently bad thing, especially since, as you say, it would have little impact on the current look/feel of the player. One question, and I'm just trying to clarify something here, cant we already just search mp3 files by typing something like "*Gomez*.mp3"? This may be limited compared to what you are talking about (minibrowser aside), I'm just trying to understand more what you are trying to add.
That being said, an idea just jumped into my head: what about adding regular expression support to FindRun? If we go The Way of the MiniBrowser, we can have multiple search "hits" and do act with all of them so this seems like a great idea... how easy it is to add, I dont know!
Two concerns with the minibrowser. While I think it is an interesting idea and should definitely be considered, I am a little worried that it would change the GUI of the standard FindRun. So long as there is a way to turn it off, no problem! Also, I think that intentions will have to be fleshed out extremely well. This minibrowser will have some but not all functionality of explorer (unless you are thinking of putting a tree pane and file pane in it). Also, many people use third party apps for a file browser specifically so they can use cool little things that arent in Win Explorer. FindRun couldnt emulate these other programs' useful features (and probably shouldnt try to). I dont believe this is a showstopper, just something that needs to be decided up front so users dont start getting fanciful ideas of all the wonderful and magical things they believe FindRunMiniBrowser will be able to do!
Let the discussion continue...
Kevin
cracksloth:
okay, in a nutshell, the features that have been discussed are:
- allowing the user to load config files by the commandline (this would require some internal changes to f&rr but would not impact the user experience)
- allowing a right-click explorer context menu
- allowing users to load a mini file browser as a configuration.
so these three things are all i mentioned. most of the bulk was explaining what makes them useful and how they could be implemented.
as you mentioned, kfitting, users can already use f&r to search for other filetypes (like mp3s). but this is problematic because if you configured f&r to look in *every* folder that you have files of interest in, it would really clutter you results. for example, if i wanted to load miranda the great IM program, it would also return results for the "miranda child's french cookery" episodes i have recorded. as well as mp3s of my favorite band, "Miranda's Death Scream"... these are all fake btw but hopefully you get the point. :) by being able to load config files, we can custom tailor config files for different types of searching. the "music" config will only return relevant results for music. the documents config will only return results relevant results. the existing config for searching for programs would also remain uncluttered with irrelevant results. the great part about it is that no one *has* to create multiple configs if they are happy with things the way they are and f&r will completely remain as it was.
now, let's discuss the mini file browser. it may be useful to think of configurations as plugins. i can load a configuration with a search plugin (the traditional method). or i can choose to load the mini file browser plugin. who knows, eventually, it may be possible to write your own plugins for showing a simple calendar or a mail checker or whatever. (mouser, if you made these plugins, you could more easily integrate them into your sidebar idea later on). the point is that any new configuration plugins (like the minibrowser) do *not* impact the regular search configuration at all. out of the box, f&r will appear the same way. *users* create the new configurations and *they* choose whether they want the option to load a mini browser. so, to recap, the minibrowser is optional and *does not* impact the main GUI (at least the way i have described it). also, it is important to remember that the mini browser is just that... mini. it is not intended to be a full file manager replacement. it *is* designed to get you quick access to various parts of your directory structure and will allow *some* quick and dirty file management. but mostly it exists for displaying files that are already nicely organized so that you can load them. it is more of a feature of file access than file manipulation.
kfittin, you mentioned:
an idea just jumped into my head: what about adding regular expression support to FindRun? If we go The Way of the MiniBrowser, we can have multiple search "hits" and do act with all of them so this seems like a great idea... how easy it is to add, I dont know!
--- End quote ---
i am not sure i fully understand this, could you go into a little more detail? what do you mean by "regular expression support"?
-cracksloth
kfitting:
I agree with you about config files, I think they would be useful, but for right now you can simulate searching for things like this. Obviously, config files allow you to do some cool things, I just wanted to be sure I understood what you meant!
Regular expressions are similar to wildcards. Currently, you can use "*" to mean any number of characters in a filename. In my example above, *Gomez*.mp3 will find any mp3 with the word Gomez in the filename. *.mp3 would find ALL mp3 files. Regular expressions allow you to go farther than just * or ? (single character) and allow you to specify a number or group of numbers, one, two, or three characters etc. Basically just a more feature rich implementation of wildcards. however, with the power regular expressions bring, they also bring a fair amount of complexity. For a decent explanation (and a look at how complex things can get) go to http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=5. The cool thing about regular expressions is you can use them... or not! Power users can keep their search broad while narrowing it (paradoxical?). Novices can play around a little, and complete newbies can avoid them altogether. I personally do not know how to use them, mainly because not many programs support them. However, if FindRun goes the way of the minibrowser, people will eventually begin looking for more than one match (the current intention of FindRun)to a particular search. You, for example, may be looking for an entire album of mp3's from Miss Miranda, or all files that match this expression [a-e][ ](Mid)*.rtf, which would match all rich text files about "A Midsummer's Night Dream (I think, as I said, I am a novice to regular expressions... but I would like to learn!).
As I said, regular expressions are complex and I dont know how easy it would be to implement. I've only used them to batch rename files (that's how I found the link above) and while I dont use them often even then, they are EXTREMELY handy in the correct circumstances. Those are my thoughts, have fun
kevin
cracksloth:
ahhh... advanced wildcards. me likey.
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