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[Suggestion] Secondary mode with execute on first unique match

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Bending_Unit:

Hi mouser,

Farr looks pretty impressive to me. I would like to propose a feature that i hope might find an open ear here  ;)


Auto execute on first (alias) unique match.
Anyone who is using the browser Opera (up until 12.x) as his browser and knows Shift+F2 knows immediately what i am talking about.
Just in case you don´t - let me explain what i am talking about:

Opera does allow to give aliases to bookmarks. This allows you to just enter the alias in the adressbar to execute a bookmark which is pretty close to (part of) what Farr is doing currently.

However it also allows you to use a key combo (Shift+F2) to call up aliases. The difference is that you just start typing the alias and once its uniqe it will execute the alias
no matter how many letters you typed so far. No need to press enter.

[Example]
Lets say you have two keywords starting with fire:    "firefox" and "firewall".

Now when you enter any of those keywords once you reach the fifth letter it will execute since its a unique match.
- "firef" would trigger firefox to be started
- "firew" would trigger the firewall to be started


Basicly my suggestion is to add a secondary input mode (e.g.  activated by accessing Farr with Shift+Break instead of Break). If you call the window up this way it should just
run every alias once the name is unique.

I would come up with two ideas to store those aliases:

- keep them in a seperate list and kinda seperated from the others
- utilize what you already have and add a checkbox "allow unique instant execution" or something to the current definitions. Only if the user checks that box it will include this alias in the search of the alternate mode.

I hope this description is clear enough.

This is not about being a lazy ass (oh my ... he doesnt have to press enter to run it  :mrgreen:) its just very comfortable if you have multiple aliases that start
with the same letters because you dont need to remember how many letters you need to type to get the one you want quickly. I guess its hard to describe it properly
if you haven´t used it yourself. Its just this little difference putting something from comfortable to very comfortable if you get what i mean.   

regards and thanks for reading,
Bender

mouser:
It's an interesting idea and well described.

It's closely related to an idea I *was* convinced to add, which is a way to make an alias that launches as soon as you fully type it (see here).

I am a bit hesitant about your suggestion because of the potential for FARR launching things due to typos, etc.

However, a middle ground might be an option that automatically launches a single-result alias as soon as it is typed exactly (and completely).
That would make it easier to add short aliases that launch as soon as you type them.

Bending_Unit:
Fully typing is a bit awkward again since you start creating short aliases again since you want to prevent yourself from the need of typing it all.
Then you have to start remembering the short ones again and so on. I know i wouldn´t use that.

I do understand your concern about accidental launching of things. So what about the option to put them into a seperate list and really go with a second shortcut to access them.

I could also propose that someone codes a launcher with just that - since its debateable to some degree if this extends Farr or is a bit too far off. Still i would really like to use the other Farr features and this addition. However that addition is what would make me use Farr in the first place. Basicly i suggested that same feature five years ago (gosh time is moving fast) in the Excecutor forum. It didnt get in (albeit there was less if any development to that one anyway over the last years) which is fine but shortly after i stopped using Excecutor and returned to TrueLaunchbar for starting things. Which is great and all but its klicking not typing.

mouser:
So, having a second list i think would be too confusing and too much work.
But adding an option that says: launch any alias result as soon as it's the only one in the results -- that i could add with relatively little difficulty.  If you think that would be useful i wouldn't mind adding that.

Bending_Unit:
Sounds good but that would interfere with the "normal" Farr behavior if you use the normal names as alias.

Example:    i add the alias "Notepad++" to it for starting Notepad++. I would have to type it till the + because the windows own notepad would show in the search results until then.

Thats why i went for a second keyboard shortcut to invoke the Farr window where it would only do this alias matching and executing once its unique but ignore the other regular program logic you have now in place.
E.g. it would not use other search results (from folders...) except those from the alias names themselves.

The more i think about it the more obvious it becomes to me that this is really a separate thing to not interfere with other things. For example - regardless the way you implement it - you might not want this on all aliases. So a general option for this behavior (yes/no) would not work out i guess. So back to the suggestion from my initial post adding a checkbox per alias to include this alias for this new functionality or not.

Will send you a pm parallel to this posting.

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