Messages

1

Coding Snacks / IE extensions: Copy Image Url To Clipboard and Browse To Url

« on: March 28, 2011, 11:29 AM »

I don't know if this is the correct section, but I just discovered how extensions in IE work, and I would like to share these extensions I made
They are actually just a little more than code samples I found around the web, but I find them very useful.

Copy Image URL

Right click, Copy the URL of the image under the cursor to the clipboard (as seen in Chrome, Firefox)


Browse to highlighted text

Select an URL in plain text (not an anchor <a href>), right click, select Browse to Highlighted text to open a new tab or window for that URL


To install, copy the .html files somewhere, I chose %APPS%\IETools (%APPS% is an environment variable which points to C:\Users\MyUserProfile\Apps)

Then open regedit a browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\

Then create two new keys

1) Browse to Highlighted &Text
2) Copy Image &URL

Set the (default) value to the file path of the corresponding html
And then create a new DWORD named "Contexts" and set it to 16 (highlighted text) for Browse to Highlighted Text, and 10 for Copy Image Url

Hope you'll find these useful

Have fun!

2

General Software Discussion / Re: FlatPress blogging platform: flat text file stored, open source, freeware

« on: October 02, 2010, 02:20 AM »

People who can't afford hosting with a DB are granted free access to WordPress.com, so what?

-Tuxman (September 30, 2010, 03:53 PM)

What if I want to self-host? What if I want a custom theme? What if it's my own damn business?

I think it (FlatPress) is pretty darn slick.  Much much easier to setup than a DBMS system.  I had it going in less than a minute.  Also, I'd venture to say that it's much easier to backup and restore, too.  Nice job, NoWhereMan.  

-skwire (September 30, 2010, 04:14 PM)

thanks

Also, the file format is quite human-readable. That's inherited from another flat file solution which was called SimplePHPBlog with which I fell in love with in 2005. The codebase was easy to read, but with simplicity in mind, which made it very hackable; but in the end it became difficult to maintain all the hacks, it wasn't very efficient with the use of resources, and plagued by many security bugs.

That's why I started working on FP, with two friends. Now it's mostly only me.

SimplePHPBlog looks dead at the moment.

Large code parts are derived from WordPress, am I right here?

-Tuxman (September 30, 2010, 04:20 PM)

small code parts. the plugin system, and the formatting filters. Not much more. The plugin system should ideally be compatible, but in fact it isn't so much.

Because flat-file storage for a blog is ridiculous.
Imagine the search procedure. Imagine the file size. Don't forget the server load.

-Tuxman (September 30, 2010, 04:43 PM)

The search sucks, and I have suggested many times to rely on google, instead.
The average file size is small, since it's all text.
The server load is the Achille's heel, but it is meant for low traffic sites.

flat-file storage is much more ridiculous for a forum engine, which is what many time people asked me for.
On a blog you just read posts in a predefined order most of the time, and sometimes you add one post --this is not designed to support multiple users at a time for editing. Comments are supported, though.

Also, I don't think there are many flat-file solutions using a data structure designed for speed and low memory consumption for indexing

If your site does not match those requirements (being low traffic, non-multiuser) I am generally the first to suggest something else; PivotX is nice because it supports bot flat files both MySQL; otherwise there is WordPress, MovableType, etc. etc.

There is even an FP2WP exporter. You wouldn't believe people asked me for a WP2FP importer... which I finally wrote, not without some concerns. ("why would you do that??)

So it's not like I'm not concerned about performances

I've been thinking about caching the front page and the last few posts. It is really free, thanks to Smarty. Someone could write a plugin to enable that;

IIRC it's just matter of

[Select]

add_action('init', 'enable_cache');
function enable_cache() {
   global $smarty;
   // todo: add a check for the frontpage... / last N posts...
   $smarty->cache = 1;
}

I don't enable caching as a default because caching the frontpage is a little counter-intuitive for a end user ("hey, where is my post?")

bye

3

General Software Discussion / Re: FlatPress blogging platform: flat text file stored, open source, freeware

« on: September 30, 2010, 03:43 PM »

hey, that's mine!

no trackbacks, and of course it's not designed for high-traffic web sites. It is meant for people who can't afford a MySQL DBMS on a cheap hosting.

4

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: clicking on a taskbar group brings up all the windows

« on: June 22, 2009, 10:05 AM »

oh, I forgot that on win7 you would still get the group menu on *hover* (ideally this could be simulated on vista as well)

5

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: clicking on a taskbar group brings up all the windows

« on: June 22, 2009, 10:02 AM »

on win7 you could ctrl-click on the taksbar button to cycle through the windows (this is built-in); on Vista/XP Ctrl-click might be simulated or either you can still alt-tab to the desired window.

Still, you're right, I didn't take maximixed windows into account.

I guess that's why Win7 does not work that way. Even though button groups with more than one window look different on win7 taskbar. Usability nightmare (you might forget non-maximized windows behind the maximized one).

6

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: clicking on a taskbar group brings up all the windows

« on: June 22, 2009, 06:45 AM »

AFAIK Windows keeps a z-order for open windows, so I guess that raising a group should respect how they are actually stacked.
I don't really know the internals of Windows, so I can't say how it would work for minimized app.

By the way, let's say your windows are stacked this way:
A, B, C1, C2, C3, D, where leftmost means the top of the stack (topmost window) and C1,C2,C3 belong to the same app;

when you click the C group on the taskbar you'd get C1, C2, C3 raised and the stack would now look like:
C1, C2, C3, A, B, D

Now, suppose you give focus to C3 by clicking it: C3 is raised and the stack it is now
C3, C1, C2, A, B, D

Now you raise, A, B, D in sequence, you get
D, B, A, C3, C1, C2 (remember it's a stack)

Finally suppose you click again the C group, you'll have
C3, C1, C2, D, B, A

I hope it is clearer. Yeah, now that I've explained it all it sounds much harder to do than I first thought
A quick and dirty solution would be not to respect the z-order and raising, say, by alphabetical order; but I suppose then it'd be more of an hassle, as you rightly point out.

7

Living Room / Re: Is UAC as bad as I think it is?

« on: June 13, 2009, 02:20 PM »

Long Zheng recently demonstrated a vulnerability with auto-elevation with UAC in Windows 7. Here he also gives a  video demo of it.
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090613/windows-7-uac-code-injection-vulnerability-video-demonstration-source-code-released/

Microsoft is yet to admit that the vulnerability exists. It looks like it might come down to user pressure to get Microsoft to fix this issue.

-dhuser (June 13, 2009, 02:03 PM)

problem is that fixing is not trivial.

by the way, setting UAC to vista-like level  (or running with a standard user) makes the treat nonexistent.

8

Living Room / Re: Is UAC as bad as I think it is?

« on: June 12, 2009, 01:16 PM »

Having said that the UAC rules in Vista are deliberately stupid. The fact that you need admin rights to even look at device manager (OK if you want to update drivers etc. you should need admin rights but just to look at the current settings shouldn't need access rights).

-Carol Haynes (June 12, 2009, 03:10 AM)

there are indeed some quirks, but, for instance, what you are talking about happens (IIRC) only when you're loggedin as an administrator. as a standard user you can for instance look at the device manager without being asked for a password (unless you decide to modify some settings).

here, I've just typed in "device manager" I just get this message, http://i41.tinypic.com/2l9rw48.jpg and the the panel pops up as usual.

Something that could be done is to set up a timer in which you are admin without more prompts.

-urlwolf (June 12, 2009, 04:13 AM)

you can't. otherwise malicious software might launch a trusted program, requiring elevation. You would then get an "elevated permission" cookie for enough time to let the malicious program to perform an administrative tasks without asking again for your consent.

Unix is pretty bad in some aspects, but permissions, they got right. And the ubuntu way of doing things (timed sudo) is pretty good.

no it's not. On Ubuntu you might feel secure since there is almost no real treat, but on windows the time frame might be well exploited as I explained above.

After tinkering with Ubuntu for the past several months, I don't find UAC any more annoying than having to type in a password all the time to "sudo" this or that.

-Deozaan (June 12, 2009, 10:10 AM)

exactly my feeling

9

Living Room / Re: Is UAC as bad as I think it is?

« on: June 12, 2009, 02:26 AM »

UAC is "lets give the user Admin rights whenever he asks for it and trust that he will never do anything wrong with it."

This cannot be. It's asking for trouble.

-urlwolf (June 11, 2009, 06:06 PM)

how are you supposed to perform administrative tasks, then?

And worse, users will automatize this, and will make no decision (i.e., always allow).

one of the biggest criticism to UAC is that there is no such thing as "always allow". Permission must be always granted

In this sense, it's better to run in admin mode and  be spared the 500 M prompts a day that you endure as a normal user. It feels like you are borrowing your own computer instead of owning it...

Please somebody correct me before I kill UAC forever... or run as admin.

I'm assuming you didn't even try it; UAC is there even when you *are* admin, that's the other criticism. In Vista the default user is an Administrator, but runs at at a lower level of permissions, which is then elevated when required; the elevation requires answering the prompt. There is actually a class of superusers running at the higher level but the account is disabled as a default.

If you are running as a standard user (non-Admin) then the prompt will ask you for an admin password.

In this case, this is nothing different than the superuser password you get in linux or mac.

UAC is much less annoying than you might think, if you stay in your little user-space and don't mess with the file system.
Your world is your user directory \users\youruserid.
Permission will be asked only when changing system settings, or when installing software. And you really don't do that that often.

Oh, and if some of the freeware you love it's asking for an admin password... they're doing it wrong.

In Win7 they introduced a UAC control panel with a "nag" level chooser; the default level provides a whitelist, so common administrative tasks can be performed without asking user for confirmation. There are however some side effects for which I would suggest to raise the bar to the higher level (you'll get the same Vista level); or in alternative, create a second, lower level user and use that for any everyday task (which is what I already do on my Vista -- and something everyone should already do on his/her xp/vista/7)

bye!

10

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Switch Filenames

« on: June 06, 2009, 07:02 AM »

Here is a quick batch file which does what you are asking for

[Select]

@echo off

if %1.==. goto USAGE
if %1.==. goto USAGE


if not exist %1 goto NOTEXISTS
if not exist %2 goto NOTEXISTS

REM move first to temp name
set tempfile=%1.%RANDOM%

move %1 %tempfile% > NUL
move %2 %1 > NUL
move %tempfile% %2 > NUL

goto EXIT

:USAGE
echo USAGE: swap file1 file2
goto EXIT

:NOTEXISTS
echo ERROR: Can't find the file(s) you specified

:EXIT
echo.

Obviously since it's a batch file it would flash in a command prompt window, but you can hide it by creating a shortcut and setting the program status to minimized. You can then drop either the shortcut or the batch file to your sendto folder, at your convenience

Just copy/paste the code to a text file (notepad) and save it as swap.bat or swap.cmd and you're set

bye

11

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: clicking on a taskbar group brings up all the windows

« on: June 05, 2009, 01:43 PM »

Usually, when taskbar grouping is enabled, clicking the button on XP/Vista would show a menu where you can choose which individual window to bring up.
On Win7 the menu is shown both on hover and on click.

What I would rather see is that all of the windows belonging to that taskbar button/group/application were brought to front.

On Win7 this would make the interaction more mac-esque since the "superbar" already visually recalls the dock, and you would still be able to bring up single windows using the hover menu, and by ctrl-clicking the icon (window cycling);

on XP/Vista you would lose the per-window access (a ctrl-click emulation is left to the desire of the developer)

Hope you'll like this idea!

Bye!

12

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST MiniCap VERSION INFO THREAD - v1.08.02 - July 05, 2006

« on: September 22, 2006, 07:08 AM »

A-W-E-S-O-M-E ! Just what I was looking for !

13

Living Room / Re: BumpTop

« on: July 03, 2006, 05:17 AM »

cool, but what I like of my desktop is it doesn't matter how much stuff is there, is always sorted in rows and cols
this take the disorder of my real desktop on my *virtual* desktop and that's so bad

14

ContextMenu Commander / Re: ContextMenu Commander

« on: January 03, 2006, 08:27 AM »

Absolutely cool. It's ages I'm searching for a good tool for that
I've been using Shelltoys XP found on a cover cd of a mag. Sweet little app. Most used: Copy path to clipboard. You get addicted but many others... print folder listing, select by filter, etc

bye

15

General Software Discussion / Re: Best FREE IRC client?

« on: November 21, 2005, 01:36 AM »

I've tried XChat as well, nad it looks sorta okay when tweaked a bit. However the windows version is nonfree (because building the windows version is nontrivial? yay for ´portable´ programs, sigh).

-f0dder (November 17, 2005, 01:05 AM)

You have to search a bit
http://www.google.co...search?q=xchat+win32
There ARE some free builds
bye

16

General Software Discussion / Re: Anybody use Lua?

« on: November 03, 2005, 01:02 PM »

I do, well, at least I did use Lua
It's a nice language... 5.x  is very powerful

17

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Png Painter

« on: October 31, 2005, 12:02 PM »

I'm sure with ImageMagick you can do what you need! 

18

Skrommel's Software / Re: NoStrayClicks

« on: October 29, 2005, 01:31 PM »

Hm... Not bad...
I found also this: http://www.yaranga.net/TouchFreeze/

thanx, bye

19

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: resize fonts in Internet Explorer 6 as easily as in Firefox

« on: October 27, 2005, 02:17 PM »

Ctrl + mouse wheel?
You could simulate wheel up & down.

20

Skrommel's Software / Re: NoStrayClicks

« on: October 27, 2005, 01:21 PM »

If this is not meant to do this, I'd ask for a coding snack

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Skrommel's Software / NoStrayClicks

« on: October 27, 2005, 11:34 AM »

Hi Skrommel,
Hi all (and thanx you all for all the softs you give us )

I was wondering what this NoStrayClicks is supposed to do... whatever it should does... it's not doing it, as It just change icons on my laptop's tray, and no more

Clues?

Thanx! Bye
Keep up your worx!!