Messages

1

Find And Run Robot / Re: Open Source?

« on: May 17, 2026, 05:20 AM »

Yeah this would be a neat

2

Find And Run Robot / Re: Tool to open skn files, skinning FARR

« on: May 17, 2026, 05:18 AM »

Yes I've used VLCSkin Builder successfully. It was some years back but I checked today and the builder.zip from link-rank.com is still identical to the version I used then, so should work.
SHA256 file hash ad4cd6597e042d35346a68354e184a6c22b8242cadbc9d79c7f7782745d80f5b

3

Official Announcements / Re: Winding down DonationCoder after 20 years

« on: May 17, 2026, 05:12 AM »

Hi! Very late to this thread but I want to thank everyone here and mouser/Jesse in particular for making this such a great place over the years 
I'v discovered so many great small tools here and learned a lot. Find And Run Robot is still super useful with features unmatched by all other launchers.

4

Find And Run Robot / Re: No longer able to change hot key?

« on: November 03, 2025, 06:20 AM »

Hi. Open FARR options. Then in the left tree view in section "List" choose "Hotkeys". There should be an entry named "Toggle FARR (Alt+Space)" or similar. Make sure its checkbox is checked. If there is no such entry then rightclick and do "add entry" to create one. Hope this helps.

5

Living Room / Re: want to get a new 3d printer in 2025

« on: January 04, 2025, 05:55 AM »

now THAT sounds interesting, especially since I've been coding in Python a lot these last couple of years.

-mouser (January 03, 2025, 12:49 PM)

Could be a great fit then! I've tried using OpenSCAD for projects but once things got complex I got stuck, something about the syntax and structuring of code, so I ended up back with GUI CAD solutions. But I know people who say CadQuery is an improvement so I plan to give it a shot. There's also a fork called build123d
https://github.com/gumyr/build123d
https://github.com/p...en/awesome-build123d
https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery
https://github.com/C...ery/awesome-cadquery

6

Living Room / Re: want to get a new 3d printer in 2025

« on: January 03, 2025, 11:58 AM »

Hey there! Sounds like you're ready for an exciting upgrade! 🚀

-Loreta24 (January 03, 2025, 03:35 AM)

bot?

@mouser Prusa just released their CORE One which might be worth comparing. More costly than P1s though. As for software CadQuery is akin to OpenSCAD but uses Python.

7

Find And Run Robot / Re: where are scoring rules stored?

« on: March 05, 2024, 09:19 AM »

In my FARR installation there are scoring rules stored in
C:\Users\<username>\Documents\DonationCoder\FindAndRunRobot\FindAndRunRobot.ini
in the sections [HeuristicScoring] [PatternScoring] and [SearchFolders]

The .alias files also contain per alias scores at
C:\Users\<username>\Documents\DonationCoder\FindAndRunRobot\AliasGroups\MyCustom\myaliases.alias
and possible other nearby .alias files

8

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR crash related to changing monitor sizes.

« on: November 26, 2023, 05:53 AM »

I still can't reproduce this issue. If I shut down the FARR process, edit the .ini file, set value MainLeft=4608, and start FARR again it shows up in the middle of the screen. I only have two screens connected. I wonder what else might differ with your PC and screen setup that triggers the issue?

9

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR crash related to changing monitor sizes.

« on: November 07, 2023, 01:00 PM »

Ok so there might be two issues, though related, if I understand you correctly?
1. FARR crashes (the FARR process closes) when you switch between physical monitors.
2. After FARR has crashed (the process is closed) starting FARR again fails if the FindAndRunRobot.ini item "MainLeft" has a negative value, which FARR automatically adds after 1 happens.

With switching you mean something like pulling out the HDMI cable of one monitor and inserting that of another while the PC is on?

Some idea on things you could test to narrow down the issues further:

Does these things happen every time you switch physical monitors? Or only sometimes? If sometimes, does it depend on how the monitors are positioned (in Windows) or on which monitor is primare? Does it depend on which monitor FARR is showing on?

I can't be of help with examining crash reports, only mouser can do that I think.

10

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR crash related to changing monitor sizes.

« on: November 06, 2023, 03:13 AM »

I don't get a crash if I set "MainLeft=-3072". Instead what happens next time the FindAndRunRobot process is started and FARR is opened it positions itself at the right edge of  the screen and the ini value gets automatically updated to "MainLeft=0".

I suggest you first make a backup of FindAndRunRobot.ini to another folder. Then experiment with values for MainLeft and other items and see if you can further narrow down the cause.

11

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR still best in my testing (one exception)

« on: September 30, 2023, 05:24 PM »

Btw, can you use FARR to do: shutdown, reboot, hibernate?

-wizk11 (September 30, 2023, 04:34 PM)

FARR doesn't have those commands built in. But you can create aliases for them.
See help section "Special/Virtual Launch Strings/Commands".

With "shellexec" you can do stuff in cmd. For example the shutdown command that is built into Windows.

Alternatively you can make an alias that launches a script file that does some action in a programming language of your choice. AutoHotkey, Python or whatever.

12

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR still best in my testing (one exception)

« on: September 30, 2023, 03:45 PM »

Yes, in the big Results editbox. One path per line. Check the FARR helpfile for details on the syntax for alias lines. You can customize the visible text and add custom icons for example.

regex alias: when your typed search string matches the regex FARR shows *only* the results determined by that alias.

regular string alias: when your typed search matches the regular string FARR *includes* the results from that alias in the results but also includes any other files and folders that matches the typed string.

edit: sorry, that difference is dependent on the checkboxes under "what to do on exact alias match" in the "search behaviour" section of the options. I've had "stop search on regex alias match" there checked for so long that I had forgotten it was an option that could be changed 

Both are useful, depends on what you want to do. If you want to memorize a short phrase like "cc" to open Chrome then a regex alias is best because it will instantly show that single result, or in my example with the command dolaunch above, not even show it but directly open Chrome. Instead of showing Chrome.exe but also other files or folders that contains "cc", for example "abcc.txt".

Using RegEx alias with short phrases like that is a bit similar to setting up hotkeys in Windows itself or other tools to launch programs, for example creating a hotkey Alt+Windows+5 to launch Chrome. But an advantage with FARR short regex aliases is that they can be mnemonic, like "cc" where c is the first letter in Chrome. I at least find it harder to remember complex hotkeys than such short alias strings.

Btw, do you know how FARR is able to match reverse typed search term 'Apps Listed' to folder "Listed Good Apps"?

-wizk11 (September 30, 2023, 03:04 PM)

I don't know how mouser implemented it in the code under the hood, but if you type apps listed FARR searches for files/folders that contain both apps and listed anywhere in the filename. The name for that is non-contiguous word search.

apologies for the many edits here, FARR has a lot of options to explore, as you see 

13

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR gets stuck/hung - please help

« on: September 30, 2023, 01:31 PM »

I don't know the cause of the issue you're experiencing. Let's see if @mouser sees this thread.

As a temporary workaround, if you don't have a lot of such network folder shortcuts, you could try to restrict them from search results. You could also temporarily set up a FARR alias to list and launch the targets of such shortcuts.

14

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR still best in my testing (one exception)

« on: September 30, 2023, 01:27 PM »

Yeah FARR is still great and has advantages still missing from other launchers.

As you get more into it try out regex aliases which lets you speed up launching of frequently used programs and also allows you to display curated results list.

For example if you use Chrome a lot you can create an alias with the regex pattern ^cc$ and the result dolaunch C:\path\to\chrome.exe
After that just type cc in FARR to immediately open Chrome.

Another example. Create regex alias ^(myproj|mypro|mypr|myp)$ and manually add a list of files and folders that belong to some project that you access often. then start typing "myp" to show those, and only those, results. The more frequently you access some program or set of resources the more convenient it will be to set up short regex aliases for them.

Regex aliases and their various commands can be used for a lot of things, especially if you combine them with some light scripting in AutoHotkey or similar language. Check out some of my older posts in this subforum if you're interested. Here's one example
https://www.donation....msg441516#msg441516

15

Find And Run Robot / Re: Exclude all files

« on: September 30, 2023, 01:15 PM »

Glad you found the solution!

16

Find And Run Robot / Re: Exclude all files

« on: September 30, 2023, 04:25 AM »

In regular search you can add +\ to the search string to only show results that are folders.

But maybe you asked about options inside the "search directory" window? I don't think there's an option to show only folders there.

But you can create a search alias that both uses +\ to only show results that are folders and uses a modifier keyword (created in a "search directory") to narrow the results further, for example only show results under the parent folder C:\abc

17

Find And Run Robot / Re: Add alias to the context menu

« on: August 14, 2023, 04:41 AM »

Yes FindAndRunRobot is still a great piece of software - thank you mouser! 

Not a built in solution but this AutoHotkey script lets you set a hotkey and should work at least when the result is just a filepath. To also handle results with more complex syntax more code steps would be needed.

[Select]

#Requires AutoHotkey v2
;press ctrl+q to QuickLook on first or selected FARR result
#HotIf WinActive("ahk_exe FindAndRunRobot.exe")
^q::
{
    ;if searchbox is active navigate to first result
    if "TNextGrid1" != ControlGetClassNN(ControlGetFocus("A"))
        Send("{Down}")
    if "TNextGrid1" != ControlGetClassNN(ControlGetFocus("A"))
        return
    ;ctrl+C puts focused FARR result's path on clipboard
    A_Clipboard := ""
    Send("^c")
    ClipWait(100)
    if A_Clipboard && FileExist(A_Clipboard)
        Run('"C:\Users\ertwr\AppData\Local\Programs\QuickLook\QuickLook.exe" "' A_Clipboard '"')
}
#HotIf

18

Find And Run Robot / Re: Error after closing and when opening

« on: February 05, 2023, 10:01 AM »

For some reason, it was trying to create paths through OneDrive, which I don't use, but I have it completely uninstalled from the PC. It is strange.

-powerpc (February 03, 2023, 02:38 AM)

Not sure what the cause of that is, but sounds similar to this 2019 issue where FARR gave similar error message due to a network path, https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=47759.0

19

Find And Run Robot / Re: Error after closing and when opening

« on: February 03, 2023, 02:34 AM »

Did you upgrade to Windows 11 through windows update in Windows 10 or did you install Windows 11 fresh from an ISO image?
I'm just asking so there's more information when mouser looks into this issue. I myself am on Windows 10 so can't reproduce it.

20

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for programming language with good integration to Windows

« on: January 01, 2023, 06:36 AM »

I doubt there is anything that satisfies all those demands

21

DC Website Help and Extras / cert warning dcmembers

« on: December 07, 2022, 01:45 AM »

I noticed a cert warning when accessing the dcmembers site in Chrome now. Expired 1 december.

22

Living Room / Re: Happy Thanksgiving 2022

« on: November 25, 2022, 01:18 PM »

Cheers!

23

General Software Discussion / Re: any shit browsers I can use?

« on: November 22, 2022, 10:50 AM »

Did you try Wayback Machine with https://archive.org/web/ ? If the site is abandoned and not updated for some time all its content is perhaps accessible that way.

24

Living Room / Re: How do you play high quality digital music *LOCALLY* - (CD quality - or higher)?

« on: October 23, 2022, 11:32 AM »

There are several linux projects that turn a raspberry pi plus a small DAC into a LAN music player controlled through an app or webapp.
Two examples
https://volumio.com/en/get-started/
https://github.com/rern/rAudio-1

25

Find And Run Robot / Re: appcap and appcapresults not working for .ahk files

« on: September 28, 2022, 03:50 PM »

BTW @mouser it seems chaining setfocus after the appcapresults or fileresults commands doesn't work. For example neither of these

[Select]

appcapresults "C:\Program Files\AutoHotkey\AutoHotkey.exe" C:\folder\a.ahk ;;; setfocus mainpanel
fileresults C:\folder\a.txt ;;; sleep 1000 ;;; setfocus mainpanel

gets focus to the imported results list.
It would be useful to have focus at the first results list item in this case.