Topics

1

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Change the color of pixels of a certain color when moving mouse

« on: October 18, 2010, 09:47 PM »

Just one color being changed would be ok, but a range of colors would be good to deal with anti-aliasing.

Options:
-Stay after mouse stop for n seconds
-Fade in/out
-While typing

The applications are obvious, aren't they?

This might be helpful:

Invert screen colors     
http://www.autohotke...orum/topic55012.html

2

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Windows Explorer: Expand one level of folders

« on: September 30, 2010, 03:33 AM »

Num * is overkill in most cases.

3

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Hide unused menu and context menu entries

« on: September 30, 2010, 03:28 AM »

If they're unused, why should you ever see them?

You start with full menus that learn over a day or a week or with empty menus. Click or hover over an area at the top or bottom of the menu to show more(most recent)/all.

Rearrange or add recently/frequently used menu entries to the top/close to mouse.

Also:
-Every menu can be pulled off to float (option always on top), and autohide (scroll or fade to % opacity)
-Dock to window and screen edges and autohide

4

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Move folders larger than n under one, if part of name appears often

« on: September 15, 2010, 06:54 PM »

1 List all folder names

2 Count the number of times each word in the names appears

3 If it appears more than, say, 10 times and the folder is larger than 50 MB, move (or copy with zero file size to simulate) it to SameDrive:\Collected\Word


This is a simple implementation of the idea described in
IDEA:Intelligently gather files & folders with same words in names to clusters https://www.donation....msg138094#msg138094

5

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Autohide Explorer toolbars (or any other software)

« on: September 11, 2010, 10:44 AM »

This app sends keys when the cursor is in particular areas of a window and when it leaves an area.
With Explorer when the cursor is near the top of the window, the hidden toolbars are shown (by sending the menu keys). The folder or favorites pane can also be shown when on the left. When near the bottom, the statusbar is shown. In the ini file you can define the settings for more software.

6

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Notepad that remembers the font (and other settings) used per file

« on: September 10, 2010, 06:46 AM »

Since SMPlayer remembers the settings per file I thought Notepad could, too. Know any text editor that has this feature? It would be useful to have different fonts for different files. I'd also like to have a different font for printing. Perhaps it could be implemented in existing notepads with AutoHotkey.

Actually a notepad with RTF would probably serve as well...

7

Finished Programs / SOLVED: Save Session for Windows (processes, open files, window positions)

« on: September 05, 2010, 12:10 AM »

As seen in Windows 8 (I hope):

Less opening apps and files by keeping a list of running processes (excluding system and user-excluded), open files, window positions, sizes, order, and restoring them after a restart or crash.

-Save and restore different sessions.
-Feature: close every process, including system processes like services (e.g. for gaming).

Combined with CryoPID-like app https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=23613.0 persistence would be quite perfect. Until that day, I'll just keep saving and resuming virtual machines.

It would ideally be able to handle virtual screens, at least a good one, Dexpot - know any better?

See also: Restoring text file positions
https://www.donation....msg216975#msg216975

8

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Universal restore last position in any text when opened

« on: September 04, 2010, 10:33 PM »

Since I don't know if you can add tags to various text formats like you can to audio formats, for portability I suggest saving a file in the document's folder and/or, less portably, in a central file. Or it could simply append to the filename, like I do, a string of the text next to the cursor or at the top of the page, and find it when reopening it, which would make it work like a tag, and perhaps the date last opened and perhaps total time spent reading. And it could also restore the window position and size and send commands to remove toolbars etc. if the app doesn't remember them. An option to choose which method(s) to use.

You would teach the app by mouse where the text window is (or the page number field if needed), and tell it what key commands are needed to operate Find (or Go to Page) (presets for common software). It reads some of that text (or page number), stores it and when the file is opened, it issues a find/go to page and you're back where you left.

Also if you have multiple files open (Foxit Reader, Notepads, Word, Browser) it would optionally store all of their state simultaneously, as a session, so when you open one, every other file is opened, too, and their positions restored.

9

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Uniform names batch filename string replacement by list: Old Name;New Name

« on: September 02, 2010, 01:13 AM »

I have files and folder all over my drives that have variations of a name which I'd like to turn into a single one.

I would create a text file:

Old Name 1 Variant 1;New Name 1
Old Name 1 Variant 2;New Name 1
Old Name 1 Variant 3;New Name 1
Old Name 2 Variant 1;New Name 2
Old Name 2 Variant 2;New Name 2
Old Name 2 Variant 3;New Name 2

The file might be long; performance could become an issue with tens of thousands of files.
I would run it on all my drives once to get uniform naming, and then only on new stuff.
Perhaps a different text file for folders names.

10

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Zoomed out in browsers/text editors should have minimum heading font size

« on: August 02, 2010, 08:14 PM »

Headings should remain at visible size when zoomed out. The idea is to get an overview of a document by zooming out, click the spot and drop back in, but the headings become too small to be of any use in navigating. My kludge is to make them big, like 50 pt, so they're visible when zoomed out, but when you zoom back in, humongousity ensues.

This is a general zooming interface idea: the things you navigate by should remain visible when zoomed out.

11

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Freeze process to file, application level hibernation, CryoPID

« on: August 02, 2010, 09:20 AM »

"CryoPID allows you to capture the state of a running process in Linux and save it to a file. This file can then be used to resume the process later on, either after a reboot or even on another machine."
http://cryopid.berlios.de/

All your apps' state cryopreserved for posterity.

I've suggested suspend/resume ability of inactive apps, but saving to disk is of course the ultimate solution.
IDEA: Send key or run app/function when window gets/loses focus or is hovered on
https://www.donation....msg189128#msg189128
IDEA: VirtualBox/VMware auto-pause/resume when mouse leaves/enters window
https://www.donation....msg173448#msg173448

I'm using multiple virtual machines as "wrappers" for apps whose state I want to retain, saving and resuming their state upon shutdown and restart. It's ok but there's overhead. I wish to liberate my state-saving apps from their VM prisons.

12

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: File and folder name spelling checker and corrector + folder clusterizer

« on: April 24, 2010, 01:17 AM »

The problem: You have a bunch of misspelled files and folders with no caps, extra words and characters, etc. But you also have many (usually the majority) correctly spelled versions of those names. You want everything to be spelled in the same, correct way.
Solution 1: You do it all by hand, making no use of those GHzs.
Solution 2: You're a coder and let code fix it.

1 List all files and folders. (Perhaps using some existing database like Locate32 or Everything.)
2 Find items in the list that appear multiple times.
3 Do a fuzzy match to items in step 2 with something like http://www.tgries.de/agrep/
4 Rename items found in step 3 to item names in step 2, or if the correct match is uncertain, i.e. if there's no clear majority of one spelling style, let the user select. Optionally let the user also confirm each renaming.

It should probably clean up the names before doing matching by removing certain known-to-be-extraneous words and characters.
A log and undo.

While you're at it, you could optionally gather every folder that has multiple matching words (sequential or appearing at any location) in its name into the folder that already has the greatest number of such folders.

Option: select folders and trees to include.

13

Unfinished Requests / IDEA: Firefox font and color settings (userContent.css) switcher

« on: February 09, 2010, 09:43 PM »

I switch between userContent.css files that force the fonts and colors to be the same on every page.

There are names like

userContent Normal.css
userContent Large.css
userContent Normal Color.css
userContent Large Color.css

In the Color files, the font colors aren't forced, that's the only difference.
The chosen file would be copied overwriting userContent.css and 'in use' would be appended to its file name.
When switching to and from the Color files, it should also send keys to switch the option Tools->Options->Colors->Allow pages to choose their own colors.
Then it restarts Firefox (there's a menu entry for that available as an add-on).
Additionally I'd like it to run DimScreen when colors are switched on and close it when switching back to no colors.

A hotkey, e.g. Win+Ctrl+1, 2, 3, 4, and shortcuts (.lnk) to switch to any file in the 'chrome' folder, but it'd be ok with just the 4 choices as above.

14

Unfinished Requests / IDEA: UnderCover/DimScreen - block out graphics, show (fade in) when cursor near

« on: February 09, 2010, 08:00 PM »

Idea from Microsoft Office 2007's fade-in floating formatting toolbar.
Inspired by DimScreen; I'd like it to be interactive and apply just to graphics, or more to graphics and less to text areas.

Blocks out or dims all non-text graphics. If you need to see it, move the cursor near or over it and it fades in. Useful mainly in a browser for blocking out or dimming all images by default, but why not the whole OS?

Features:
Fade distance curve.
Blocking transparency %.
Restore to % transparency.
Color is user selected or some system color.
Keep unblocked graphics visible permanently or n seconds after mouse no longer over or moving near.
Redisplay limit n times so you don't see them more than a few times while the cursor is passing over.
Modifier-click for permanent display on/off.

There's a program UnderCover that removes the UI controls. Modifying it to be interactive with cursor position would be a start.

15

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: A single hotkey that runs a single command line. Smallest. Snack. Ever?

« on: December 27, 2009, 07:43 PM »

Should just wait and consume no CPU.

If you can make an icon or a colored or transparent area that runs a program when clicked, that'd be nice to have too for the occasions when pressing or remembering a hot key is just too much work. A single pixel in a corner would be nice.

16

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Send key or run app/function when window gets/loses focus or is hovered on

« on: December 23, 2009, 06:28 AM »

Features:

-Action just by having the cursor enter/leave the window or clicking
-Send key combo
-Run a cmd line app with the window's name, path\exe, or PID as a parameter
-Suspend process
-Resume process
-Change window size and state (max/min just vertically or horizontally)
-Action delay by ms (so that you could leave the window for a while without triggering)
-Configure actions per window name, exe, or PID
-Exclusion list so that not all windows (vital system processes, like Explorer, Taskmgr) are affected


Examples:

Save CPU: Suspend almost every process except the window with focus.
This would be accomplished by suspending/resuming the process or sending a pause/resume key combo to a virtual machine when it loses/gets focus.

Screen filled with auto-resizing windows: Resize/maximize window when it's clicked/hovered on, and when it loses focus it's resized back/minimized.

What to call it? The Windowator, or the Windowizer?

17

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Auto-hide window borders when not hovering over/near them (SCREENSHOT)

« on: September 30, 2009, 09:40 AM »

To take a step toward the clean, minimalist look you see in the Microsoft 2019 video, hide window borders when not hovering the cursor over them (or near them, user adjustable option). Either by making them transparent, or if that's not possible, overlay with some user-selectable solid color (usually the desktop background color), like in this mockup:

When hovering over or near the border, the color would be removed but could also be changed to transparent and tinted so that the borders "glow" or simply changed to some other solid color (width and position adjustable - if not using the border width system variable - so you could cover only parts of the border, for example leaving the outermost or innermost line visible). If you can actually remove them so that the windows would tile seamlessly, that would be an option, but just hiding them would be fine.

It certainly can be done as seen in this tiling window manager:

http://hashtwm.demonastery.org/

This http://www.autohotke.../commands/WinSet.htm would seem to do the job (though I'm not sure) and has even rounded corners which would be a bonus (user option, adjustable roundness).

https://www.donation....msg179289#msg179289 lets you blank out the window titlebar (and taskbar) icons and buttons when not hovering over the titlebar. It seems you'd only have to change a bit of code there to get this app done.

That app is needed for getting that ultra-minimalistic look. Perhaps it and this one could be combined.

The app could, optionally, also hide the window titlebar, and also the statusbar, and scrollbars, when not hovering near them. It would optionally actually remove the titlebar like in the tiling window manager, but when the cursor is near the titlebar area, it pops up.

A separate bonus snack:

To get rid of the last piece of visual clutter, I'd also like to have the My Computer/Internet icon removed from the Explorer statusbar. Simply filling that area with a solid color would be an acceptable solution. The user would have to match the color and perhaps the height to the visual style - unless there are system variables for those.


Also see http://homepage1.nif...kazubon/tclocklight/ for getting rid of the visual junk in the taskbar.

18

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: VirtualBox/VMware auto-pause/resume when mouse leaves/enters window

« on: August 01, 2009, 09:30 AM »

A VM (a Virtual Machine, like VirtualBox, VMware, Virtual PC) pauses when the mouse is not within the window (or full screen in case using a virtual windowing manager like VirtuaWin or Dexpot). When the mouse enters the window it sends the resume hotkey to it. When it leaves, it sends the pause command to it. The number of VMs running will be limited only by RAM, not CPU. Includes and excludes by window title, because you don't want to pause a server VM.

19

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: DimButtons, DimIcons (Undercover + DimScreen)

« on: July 08, 2009, 09:22 PM »

DimScreen but just for the buttons and icons (though IconPackager helps with icons). If possible fade up when hovering. Ideally I'd like to have partially or fully desaturated or colorized with hue control icons and buttons, some % darker than normal, even 100%, so they'd only become visible when approaching them and light up when hovering.

If this UI magic is possible, please implement.

20

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Sort (and split) text by user-added (tag) strings in front of paragraphs

« on: June 30, 2009, 10:32 AM »

The idea is to be able to gather paragraphs that have the same kind of content together for further editing.

Example: you've collected paragraphs of text dealing with several different topics into a single file, but they are in random order. To get them in order, you read each paragraph just enough to determine what it's about and add a tag. After you're done, you run this program and you've got all the tagged ones neatly together, in the same order as they were in the original text.

Huge messy text file:

Something about zeros 1.
Something about ones 1.
Something about ones 2.

Something about zeros 2.
Something about zeros 3.


Something about ones 3.

Something about zeros 4.


The user manually adds a tag to the beginning of each paragraph - to make it easy using perhaps some auto string expander, typing e.g. zzero, oone, or +z, +o:

[Zero] Something about zeros 1.
[One] Something about ones 1.
[One] Something about ones 2.

[Zero] Something about zeros 2.
[Zero] Something about zeros 3.


[One] Something about ones 3.

[Zero] Something about zeros 4.


The software sorts the paragraphs so that all paragraphs that have the same tag are together. It can export them into files that have the tag as a name (optionally without the special characters, like []):

[Zero] Something about zeros 1.
[Zero] Something about zeros 2.
[Zero] Something about zeros 3.
[Zero] Something about zeros 4.

[One] Something about ones 1.
[One] Something about ones 2.
[One] Something about ones 3.


(Notice the zeros were first, because the first occurrence of a tag was a zero.)


Options:

The tag as a subtitle before the paragraphs with optionally one or two empty lines above it and one, two or none below.
Add empty line between paragraphs.
Don't remove the tags from the result.
Sort tags alphabetically (the ones would be first).
The tag can be anywhere within the paragraph.


The tags could of course be anything, like -z and -o. The software determines it's a tag if two instances of the same string appear in front of paragraphs.

21

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Laptop Security - Lock system/send keystroke unless key pressed in n sec

« on: June 06, 2009, 10:11 PM »

UPDATE: Added link to the program here. It's beta and doesn't yet have all the super-secure (if the adversary is prepared and knows what he's doing) features discussed here, but it works.
http://www.mediafire.com/?wtgywzo2znt
Edit the file to set the timer values. The key combination to reset the timer is Win+3.
You also need to have http://www.autohotkey.com/ installed.
Original code that has a different timeout (fake) warning (task tray balloon) below.

Use the computer with full confidence in situations where it can be snatched (stolen) from your hands. Any public areas actually qualify - and even your (g/b) friend, parent, teacher, bouncer, security guard, police, may just choose to take a look. Or if you absentmindedly leave your system unsupervised for a while, they can't get a (long) peek. The more portable things get, the more easily you lose physical control of them. The solution: you need to provide a "heartbeat" to the computer. They'll get the body but not the mind...
Send keystroke, activate screen saver, blank screen, display an image (favorites: black screen with "Missing Operating System", or "NTLDR is missing", or "Operating system not found", actually switching to DOS graphics mode or the trusty old BSOD), run video, run program, shut down, etc. unless a key is repeatedly pressed within, say, 10 sec. Could be one time only, e.g. during startup.
If you fail, it will optionally ask for a (probably quick and easy to type) password or a (modifier combo) key (or no dialog, you'll just type it) and if you fail to provide it in, say, 30 seconds, it will send a keystroke which will e.g. forcefully dismount encrypted drives.
Optional visible countdown timer with custom position, font, color, transparency. It could stay invisible until 5 sec remain and then change color from green through amber to red, or become more opaque and start blinking when 3 sec remain. If wrong key is entered, the color will optionally change, and optionally a sound will play (lowest priority feature).
Use a string of characters that has to be entered in order, repeating, or any one of them. So e.g. you'd keep on pressing Ctrl+Win+A, Ctrl+Win+S, Ctrl+Win+D to keep the system happy.
The key can be anything, with a modifier or modifier combo or no modifier.

Could support the finger print reader, microphone input (one of a group of recorded sounds/words).

22

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Set non-focused processes low/below normal priority

« on: February 02, 2009, 09:24 PM »

Idle/low priority non-focused processes, except system processes, though idling most of them is ok - it seems only csrss.exe and System need to remain normal or higher unless you want UI slowdowns and audio/video dropouts. Also as groups: when any of X, Y, or Z are focused, all are non-idle.
Each process can have its focused and unfocused priority set; you could have non-focused at a higher priority. You need to be able to set all process priorities permanently. Prio http://www.prnwatch.com/download.html helps but doesn't do system processes.

See also suspending processes
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=16746.0

23

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Hotkey Save files & presets with auto incrementing # and current date time

« on: January 29, 2009, 06:54 AM »

A universal search and replace for the save text field. Instead of doing it all manually, it automates as much as possible so all you need to do is what can't be automated.

Automatically add a date at the end or start of a file or preset name or, more usually, replace an existing date time, optionally leaving the dialog box open for further edits.

It should be also able to increment a 0001 or 001 or 01 somewhere in the line, determining the next one from the last one if possible, or you set the starting number and it has its own counter that it increments whenever it is used.

I may have a name for a file or a preset in this format

Name Save# Description DateTime

e.g.

Microsoft Windows 7 SP 1 123 Explorer becomes unresponsive 20091231 2359

A hotkey should save it as

Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 124 Explorer unresponsive AGAIN 20100101 0000

Save# and DateTime can be positioned anywhere and either can be omitted. You set their positions manually.

Another hotkey would leave the dialog open (i.e. not press OK/Save) and position the cursor at any place in the name or automatically in front of the description.

Another hotkey would in addition delete the description so all you need to do is type the description.

In practice:

1 Press hotkey
Name 124 | 20100101 0000
(| is the cursor)
2 Type description
3 Press enter

This is a lot less work than
1 Click save preset
2 Move cursor
4 Increment number
5 Select old description
6 Type description
7 Move cursor
8 Modify date and/or time
9 Press enter

Sometimes Save Preset is not available as a shortcut key, and in the worst case  you must click a button, which opens a menu, and then select Save. I don't know how the hotkey would click the save preset button. Perhaps every UI element  has an identifier and you can teach it the right button, per software. Or the software author could be asked add a shortcut key for saving presets.

24

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Button/hotkey pause every process except focused and...

« on: January 25, 2009, 12:54 AM »

A button/hotkey that I could tap and everything else except the focused process and the vital system processes would be suspended. Another tap would resume. You could stop/start services too.

You could have several different types:

Maximum: Suspend everything except focused process and vital system processes.
Medium: Leave some vital UI processes running, like FARR and TapTap, etc.
Minimal: Suspend only processes that have larger than n% usage.

See also
https://www.donation....msg139975#msg139975

25

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Locate32 saved searches as folders in Explorer (shell namespace objects)

« on: November 30, 2008, 05:42 AM »

This is so obvious it probably has been suggested already. Searches as shell namespace objects (folder views). You just click the (virtual) folder and see the results of the search and can work with them just like in a Locate window. Couldn't be simpler and easier. Right click the folder to configure search terms. Ctrl-drag to copy. Place them in any folder (as junctions?), but if not possible, with the Shell Object Editor, you can at least add them to the Desktop or My Computer.