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Last post Author Topic: Post your FARR v2 Plugin Idea Requests Here - Plugin Writers Read In  (Read 252553 times)

Dr-Leech

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a plugin that search Clipboard Help+Spell databases would be great..

:)

edbro

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maybe someone can write a plugin to interface with the best free+pay sticky notes apps, so you can add stickies from farr.
Great idea. I pointed an alias to a Powerpro script:
local nh
nh = note.open
note.setCategory(nh,"reminder")
note.ontop(nh,0)

Muadib

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Hi Mouser,

First of all, forgive me if this is already available or it can be done using another software.

Secondly, I really appreciate FARR  :Thmbsup: and I miss just one thing, that I don't know if it can be implemented as a plug-in or it should be a different software: last programs executed.

What I mean is something different from the default Windows space available inside the "Start" menu (Win XP), which I never know when will include a program there. I'm looking for something more similar to "My recent documents", but having programs instead. I know that there is a software (which I don't remember the name) that include that as an extra menu in the "Start", but I don't like going through too much sub-menus to find the software I used two minutes ago. It Could be faster to me if i could find it in a easier way (a pop-up maybe?) in the FARR.

Thank you for this very helpful software.

mouser

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this was recently suggested by someone else and i think it's a very good idea to add, perhaps as a plugin.

so in other words, FARR should know about recently launched programs and recently open documents and can either show them on request, or search for them when searching, with higher scores.

if any c++ coder wants to work with me to add this as a built-in function into farr, i'd be very happy to work with them on it -- if you write generic c++ code to grab me a list of recent docs and recently launched files i'd be honored to integrate it into core features of farr.  email me at [email protected].
« Last Edit: April 30, 2007, 06:49 AM by mouser »

mouser

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I'd like to see a farr plugin that does what ServicesCtl by OGroeger does, lets you type "services *" and shows you matching background services in windows, and their running status (green or red light icons), and lets you toggle them on and off when you click.

Armando

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find the software I used two minutes ago. It Could be faster to me if i could find it in a easier way (a pop-up maybe?) in the FARR.

Thank you for this very helpful software.


I'm not sure if I understood properly... But here's what you could call a workaround : what I do to "find the software I used two minutes ago", is just make Farr display more results in the list (max. entries to display in normal results list: 50 ; max. entries to display in extended results list: 70), set the max. files to keep in launch history to a relatively high number (300), and tick the box beside Blank search shows files from launch history. That way, when I blank the search field, I get a list of my previous run programs and looked at documents. I actually often use Farr (Find and Run Robot) as a history list. But, for that to work, you must use Farr to start… almost everything… Which I do..  : )

In the mean time, there is a software that probably does exactly what you’re looking for : TaskTracker. I’ve tried in the past, used for a while, and found that Farr + X1 was enough to track anything related to my files or software use. TaskTracker just added one more level of organization I had to think about… I didn’t want that.

jsturtridge

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I would *love* to see a way of easily switching to already open programs.  I.e. type Firefox and if it's running - a switch_to command would pop up allowing us to super-quickly switch.  This ought to be pretty easy - you could either get the list of processes (i.e. the same as the "Processes" tab in the task manager) or applications (i.e. the "Applications" tab in the task manager).

This would be just great.

Cheers - Jon.

justice

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Hi jsturtridge I have created a helper program to achieve this, although it would be great if someone could make a plugin that would show you the list of apps in the results window as you type, that would certainly minmize any typing mistakes.

Until that time try SwitchToTask

jsturtridge

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Justice,

That's so funny - I just wrote something almost exactly the same (although I hadn't spotted that you can use RegEx as an argument to SetTitleMatchMode ... so mine was case sensitive.

I must admit - I think there could be a lot of mileage of Skrommel and Mouser teamed up and put the AHK script engine inside FARR - or alternatively ...

Mouser  - are you listening? - had a way of getting any scripts/executable to contribute to the list of things that you can pick from.  I'm a Mac user at home and power of QuickSilver is that there are so many plug-ins for it - and they're generally reasonably quite straightforward to make in AppleScript ... so I was thinking ...

It would be great to enhance the alias function a little bit - so that you could have two types of alias - one as per the existing alias - and a new type of alias - that can contribute to the result list.  For example:

1. You set up this new type of alias and when FARR matches that alias (e.g. "+killpid") - it calls an executable that you define -

1000>>>Kill PID>->C:\Program Files\FindAndRunRobot\Scripts\GenerateKillPID>+>killpid (.*)

That executable runs (and say for example gets the list of windows names) and passes back a string (delimited by ||) along the lines of the following:

Kill Notepad, 1000, c:\program files\scripts\killpid 1021 || Kill Outlook, 1000, c:\program files\scripts\killpid 998 || Kill Firefox, 1100, c:\program files\scripts\killpid 521

3. FARR then displays the "friendly name" in the list, i.e. "Kill Notepad" along with a weighting that can be put with the rest of the results, then the string that FARR executes if that option is chosen.

I think this would be relatively easy to implement (although I'm not volunteering to do it, Mouser), not be too unperformant (since FARR would only execute GenerateKillPID when it matches the alias and allow FARR to be really expandable without too much bloat.

What does everyone think?

Jon.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2007, 05:49 AM by jsturtridge »

justice

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Good idea to allow any application to act a plugin.. I'd very much find that helpful because AutoHotkey can't compile into DLLs! So I can't return any informatino to FARR like you said. I'm not sure if to use the +keyword for this would be the best implementation though.

An alternative way of doing this:
* Someone would make a simple EXE output/stdout wrapper as a plugin (dll).

We would then just be able to create quick scripts that would integrate with farr without any extra work, using the current alias system. I'd pay some credits for a solution to this idea.

Muadib

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Hi Armando,

I'm terrible sorry for my rude delay answering your reply, but I forgot to keep an eye on that thread, and I only saw it now.

find the software I used two minutes ago. It Could be faster to me if i could find it in a easier way (a pop-up maybe?) in the FARR.

Thank you for this very helpful software.


I'm not sure if I understood properly... But here's what you could call a workaround : what I do to "find the software I used two minutes ago", is just make Farr display more results in the list (max. entries to display in normal results list: 50 ; max. entries to display in extended results list: 70), set the max. files to keep in launch history to a relatively high number (300), and tick the box beside Blank search shows files from launch history. That way, when I blank the search field, I get a list of my previous run programs and looked at documents. I actually often use Farr (Find and Run Robot) as a history list. But, for that to work, you must use Farr to start… almost everything… Which I do..  : )

In the mean time, there is a software that probably does exactly what you’re looking for : TaskTracker. I’ve tried in the past, used for a while, and found that Farr + X1 was enough to track anything related to my files or software use. TaskTracker just added one more level of organization I had to think about… I didn’t want that.


I'll try your technic until we have our FARR v2 out.

Cheers.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2007, 03:15 AM by Muadib »

mouser

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An official plugin writing contest for FARR 2 has now begun (deadline July 14).  Read details here:
https://www.donation...index.php?topic=8875

edbro

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How about an ability to run a program with elevated admin privileges in Vista? Similar to the "sudo" alias in this utility:
http://brandontools....t/StartPlusPlus.aspx

justice

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An idea would be to write a tagging system for Farr, where you can add tags to applications and then reload a listing of apps by typing in a
:webdev
for example. (a shortkey for launching all items on the list would then be a productivity booster) typing a
:
would list all tags, and use autocomplete to contruct tags.

tagging could go like this (command:tag,tag,tag,etc):
dreamweaver :webdev,html,web

I'm not sure if it would be quick/easy enough to really use it though, although I think other people might be interested? Perhaps if popular applications would come pretagged at a later stage it would make it even easier to use :D
« Last Edit: June 19, 2007, 04:15 AM by justice »

allen

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I haven't read the entire thread, so I apologize if this has been suggested. Also, I have not read up on the api so I don't know if this would be at all feasible.  But I think it would be really cool--

Basically a very simple text editor that would allow you to use farr for quickly editing a non-binary file, even expanding it into a bit of note-taking functionality.

Ideally, it'd be able to edit/access any file you'd normally be able to find via farr, but preceeded with the appropriate alias--in which case, instead of opening the file in the default app it'd be opened in the place that tyipcally lists files -- the text body being there with the cursor focus shifting to that field where changes could be made and then saved.

It could also be possible to define some directories in the plugin config that would be scanned for text files only when the plugin is references, so one needn't clutter the rest of FARR with these special interest dir(s). They'd be prioritized for quicker access than tyipcal full scan.

In the spirit of quick note taking, typing alias filename blurb of text would automatically append "blurb of text" to the end or beginning of the file (the choice of which being defined in the plugin settings)

So if I simply needed to find a document to copy the contents to my clipboard for repasting elsewhere, I could just bring up FARR, open the document directly in it, snag the contents, exit out.  Or open FARR, jot down a quick alias, filename, and the note -- presto, duly noted.  The list could easily/rapidly be edited, cleared, etc. -- all without ever having to call up an external program.

JennyB

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Good idea to allow any application to act a plugin.. I'd very much find that helpful because AutoHotkey can't compile into DLLs! So I can't return any informatino to FARR like you said. I'm not sure if to use the +keyword for this would be the best implementation though.

An alternative way of doing this:
* Someone would make a simple EXE output/stdout wrapper as a plugin (dll).

We would then just be able to create quick scripts that would integrate with farr without any extra work, using the current alias system. I'd pay some credits for a solution to this idea.

This has got me thinking about ways to make alias creation even easier. Regexes are overkill for all but the few where the expression has no unique prefix.for For the rest a simpler syntax should make it easier for a user to create an alias on the fly for any new command they encounter.   I've been thinking for some time that an alias should be selected in the same way as a folder - you shouldn't need to type in the whole name to activate it. That would mean that you could not just paste an alias and its parameters directly into Farr's search window and have it run, but it does allow greater flexibility in other directions.

Here's a schema for an alternative .alias format (+ indicates an optional item, * an optional repeated item):

   ALIASES
       *ITEM
         +NAME
         RESULT
         *PARAMETER
            ACTION (none/enter/find/do)
               +ARGUMENT
            +HISTORY (open/closed, search/nosearch)
               *ITEM

Recursive, yes - but so is a file system. Names are selected in the same way as folder names, recursively searching through searchable history. RESULT is a single command string, with placemarkers for any parameters needed. ACTION is the method to produce a particular parameter. If there is a history attached to the parameter, the list there is displayed first so that a previously entered string can be reused. If the history is open and a new string is chosen, then it is added to the list.   Such a new parameter can be given a NAME by which it is found, and may take parameters of its own, whose ACTION and HISTORY behaviour can specified.

ACTION none   restricts choice to the parameters in the exsisting history list
ACTION enter  allows the user to type in a string. The optional argument is a prompt
ACTION find    is a recursive call to Farr, returning the string that would have been launched (e.g. a filename) as a parameter. The argument is a search string.
ACTION do     The argument launches an external program that returns a string  (representing perhaps an open window, an active task, or a registry key)

Example:

NAME cmd
RESULT  c:\windows\nircmd.exe  ...
PARAMETER
ACTION  enter   ( complete the rest of the command string)
HISTORY closed search  ( allow new items, and find them with out having to select cmd first)
   ITEM
      RESULT screensaver
   ITEM
      RESULT monitor ...  ( this needs another parameter)
      PARAMETER
         ACTION none ( allow only the supplied parameters)
         HISTORY closed nosearch
            ITEM
               RESULT on
            ITEM
               RESULT off
            ITEM
               RESULT low
   ITEM
      NAME Resolution
      RESULT setdisplay ...
      HISTORY open nosearch   ( collect valid settings)
         ITEM
            RESULT 800 600 16

and so on...

If you don't see how it can fail -
you haven't understood it properly.

mouser

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i know this has been suggested before but i think the following would be useful:

plugin that shows list of installed printers and select one to set as default.
plugin that shows list of of add/remove entries and select to uninstall.

jgpaiva

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plugin that shows list of of add/remove entries and select to uninstall.
Now that'd be cool! (even though i don't unninstall software that often)

mouser

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hierarchical organization for aliases is an interesting idea jenny.. i was thinking of writing a kind of hierarchical notetaking and clip management plugin, it might be usable for the kind of thing you are suggesting..

steeladept

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i know this has been suggested before but i think the following would be useful:

plugin that shows list of installed printers and select one to set as default.
plugin that shows list of of add/remove entries and select to uninstall.

Interesting ideas.  Now if only I knew how to program...better!


EDIT - Before anyone says it - I am trying to learn it better via online tutorials, classes, and even the DC Programming School.  It just takes time and practice, neither of which I have in any abundance.
« Last Edit: June 28, 2007, 02:33 PM by steeladept »

JennyB

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hierarchical organization for aliases is an interesting idea jenny.. i was thinking of writing a kind of hierarchical notetaking and clip management plugin, it might be usable for the kind of thing you are suggesting..

Yes, even a simple circular queue from which an alias could take its arguments (my programming background is mainly Forth).

A general point for all plugin writers - if you are making something that searches for a window, process, printer or whatever, please leave a way of allowing someone else to write a command-line +alias that can do something you didn't anticipate with whatever is chosen.
If you don't see how it can fail -
you haven't understood it properly.

tinjaw

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Would anybody be interested in a plugin that did Shutdown, Standby, Hibernate, and Reboot?

Nevermind  :-[

It took 60 seconds for people to explain why it was a bad idea. And I agree with them.  :P
« Last Edit: July 02, 2007, 08:53 PM by tinjaw »

mouser

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to clarify why tinjaw's idea is not good:
it's actually a great idea, but a much easier approach is to create an alias file for a commandline tool with such functionality, like NirCmd which is already exists for farr.

mouser

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Did someone suggest yet a spellcheck plugin?

you would type:
spellc necesary

and it would display as results the top suggested words, when you click one it would copy it to the clipboard.
1 necessary
2 ...
3 ...

(ps there are free spellcheck engines like http://aspell.net/)

jgpaiva

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Just to cast another vote for the "kill active processes" plugin, it'd be the one i want the most.