
        Readme for Browser Bunch v. 1.4.1.0

  Install: Unzip to an empty folder

  Remove: Delete folder made above

  Usage: BrowserBunch
    Displays About Box with usage info

  Usage: BrowserBunch /setup
    Use Setup Mode to assign multiple Browsers to Buttons

  Usage: BrowserBunch UrlFile [ Filter ]

  Browser Bunch reads UrlFile which should be plain
  text with a web address per line. If Filter is not
  specified, an InputBox will pop up. This makes it
  easy to use via SendTo Folder or Windows 7 Jump List.

  I recommend using a single word as a filter. For example
  if you saved a bunch of Internet Movie Data Base search
  Urls to a file, and only wanted to see the ones with
  "wind" in the title (such as "gone with the wind" or
  "windstruck") then use the word wind as Filter.

  At this point a Gui pops up with 6 buttons. The left
  most button is the "default" that will press if you
  hit Enter. That should be the one with the browser
  you use most. The buttons will be blank until you
  associate a browser exe with the button. Pressing
  a blank button brings up a File Open Dialog allowing
  you to select the browser exe for that button. Then
  the Urls will be opened with that browser. 6 Buttons
  allows you to use up to 6 browsers. Should be enough
  for most people. :) The paths for the browser exes
  will be saved to .ini file along with the button number.

  When the Gui Window opens, the label will show the length
  of the Command Tail (all the Urls are strung together with
  spaces between and added to the browser command line) in
  characters.  Also it will tell you how many Tabs will be
  Opened if you push a button. Press Esc key or use the
  'x' close button of the window to abort launching the
  browser. According to MS documentation, XP and later
  should support a total command line size of 8191 characters.
  Unless you are using very long search strings the issue of
  concern would be the number of tabs openned, rather than
  the command line length. Especially chrome or other browsers
  that open a process for each tab, memory used and/or the browser
  bogging down may be an issue. For these reasons the stats
  are presented, giving you the chance to abort launch.


  Needless to say the browser in question must be set to open
  new links in Tabs. It also must support listing multiple
  Urls on the command line. I've tried Chromium 20.x,
  Opera 11.51, Firefox 9.01 and MaxThon Portable 3.0.
  They all worked fine.

  Associating Browsers with Buttons:

  You can do it "on the fly" one at a time as described above,
  of if you are impatient, edit the included .ini file. Brows_1
  is the left most button. Inside the .ini file paths should not
  be double quoted even if they have embedded spaces. For example
  associating Firefox with the second button may look like
  Brows_2=C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe

  If Left and Top are set to -1 then the Gui Window will be
  roughly centered on the desktop. On program close the Gui
  Window position will be saved to the .ini file.


  Creating Url files:

  Automatically using Firefox or Chrome

  A macro tray hotkey program is included named BBSS.exe.  This stands for
  Browser Bunch Session Save. It's a simple macro that gets the URL from
  each tab and saves them to a text file. To use, run in tray, make Filefox
  or chrome window active. Hit the hotkey which is Control-Shift F10 by
  default.) You may change settings by quitting BBSS.exe then editing BBSS.ini
  Ini File in the folder where you unzipped the download. For the hotkey
  syntax used by AutoIt3 see this page:
  http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/appendix/SendKeys.htm

  Manually:

  The simplest method is to select the Address Bar in
  your browser, then copy and paste it as a line in
  your Url file using a plain text editor with no word wrap.

  Some text editors may allow you to drag the selected line
  from the address bar into the editor. This worked for me
  with chromium and firefox using EditPadLite7 as editor.
  EditPadLite7 also has line sort and delete duplicate line
  functions.

  ===========================================================
  Recommendations:

  Back up your .ini file. Once you have browsers associated
  with buttons it's a good idea to make a backup of your .ini
  file. BrowserBunch.ini is created in the same folder as
  BrowserBunch.exe. If BrowserBunch.ini exists, it is renamed
  BrowserBunch.ini.bak. If BrowserBunch.ini.bak already exists,
  it is renamed BrowserBunch.ini.bak2. This gives you a chance
  to undo option changes. But it's still a good idea to manually
  back up your .ini to a name not used above once you have browsers
  assigned.


  If you have Windows 7 it's very easy to group your
  categorized Url files with the program by pinning
  BrowserBunch.exe to the Taskbar, then dragging the
  Url files onto the Taskbar icon to pin them also.
  I believe by default Windows allows up to 16 files
  to be pinned. Just right click the BrowserBunch
  Taskbar icon, click a Url file, and optionally enter
  a Filter when the input box opens.
  ===========================================================

  See Requirements on this page:
  http://www.favessoft.com/downloads.html

  All my utilities are free for you to use at your own
  risk. Unfortunately I only have English Language
  versions of Windows for development. My PC is a
  single monitor system. For these reasons I cannot
  support Unicode non-English systems or systems with
  multiple monitors. Most of the time it's not an issue.
  But there are cases where I just can't eliminate bugs
  without having that version of Windows installed for
  testing.

  Please Donate to help me provide free Windows utilities:
  http://www.favessoft.com/donate.html

  I hope you enjoy using Browser Bunch.
  MilesAhead

revisions

1.4.2.0 Removed "SwitchKey" option and replaced it with a switch option
for each browser button. Run BrowserBunch to launch a set.  This will
write the new options to the .ini file. For example to use command line
switches with the first browser, set Brows_1_Switches=--switch or
Brows_1_Switches=/switch whatever syntax the browser expects. Just leave
empty to start without any switches.

1.4.1.0 Added "SwitchKey" ini file option to pass a switch to
one of the browsers. For example for chrome you may add these
2 lines to the .ini file:
SwitchKey=chrome
chrome=--somechromecommandlineswitch

Use the base filename of the browser. For example firefox, opera etc..
When launching the browser matching SwitchKey the switch, if not blank,
will be prepended to the command tail.


1.4.0.0 Uses Blur Behind Window effect if enabled on system
(Vista or later required.) This can be disabled by setting
.ini file option UseGlass to anything other than True or 1
(e.g. UseGlass=0). The default setting is True.

1.3.0.0 If command line param is /setup it opens the Gui
Window in set up mode. Pressing blank buttons assigns
browsers and the Gui stays open. Close Gui Window when
you're finished setting up. You may run set up mode at
any time to change one or more button assignments.

1.2.0.0 If the default button has no associated browser, before
displaying the Gui Window the program will offer to assign the
default browser, if it can be determined. Also fixed option
settings bug if BrowserBunch.ini file does not exist yet(such as
on first program run or file deleted by user.)

1.1.1.0  Existing ini file now backed up before updating.

1.1.0.0  If there is no browser assigned to default button
(Brows_1= option in the .ini file) the program will try to
get the exe associated with the included index.html file.
In other words, it tries to use FindExecutable() API to get
the default browser. To assign a different browser to the first
button just.

1.0.0.0  Initial release.

  