Topics

1

Coding Snacks / Quickly toggle between Aero and non-Aero themes on Windows 7

« on: May 22, 2015, 02:43 AM »

An edge case. I run Windows 7, 64-bit, with the Blackbox for Windows shell. It works for me, and I like it, and I'll keep using it as long as I can. Blackbox doesn't look right with Aero enabled, and so I disable it most of the time. With Aero, goes VSync and sometimes graphics acceleration for things like movies and some games. That means tearing.

Right now, if I don't want that tearing, I go to the Personalization area of the Control Panel, and pick an Aero theme (Windows 7, Architecture, Characters, etc.), which makes Blackbox look crappy, but temporarily lets my full-screen application look its best. Then I flip it back when done.

I'd like a quick toggle that allows me to switch between an Aero theme and a non-Aero theme, so I can have my cake and eat it too.

How would this look? Maybe a small window with two buttons, each indicating a theme, and a config dialog. If possible, something that invisibly switches between two pre-selected themes, kills itself, and requires no additional input of any kind.

2

Coding Snacks / Arma Million Mile Walk Abation and Strain Prevention Software (AMMWASPS)

« on: September 29, 2013, 07:29 PM »

My friends play Arma. I hate Arma, but I like my friends. The thing that I do most in Arma, more than anything else, is hold down the 'W' key. I hold it down, and then I hold it down some more. Sometimes I tap it, but mostly I hold it down.

This is because Arma's world is big, and 'W' is 'move forward.' There are other keys that I sometimes hold down, like 'Shift' or 'Q'. Sometimes there are vehicles. This means holding down 'W' and 'Shift' at the same time.

I have RSI. I don't need this.

I'd like a coding snack that will allow me to define a hotkey combination (such as CTRL+SHIFT+W) that will simulate holding W down, or any other key for that matter. It could be either a toggle for the 'stickiness' of the key in question, or just a toggle for 'hold down' 'don't hold down.' Either is fine.

I'd be fine using an AHK script for this, as long as I can use it for at least three custom keys, or just a plain old simple program with a functional GUI. Either way, my wrist, shoulder, and fingers all thank you!

I haven't been back here in some time, and it's good to see that my Donation Credits are still active. This has always been a great community for software chat, maybe I'll hang out a little while again.

3

Coding Snacks / PortaTorch - A Torchlight 1 Portablizer

« on: October 05, 2012, 04:44 PM »

The short: AHK neophyte/non-programmers wonders if this project is doable in AutoHotKey without too much trouble.

Like many, I jump on any remotely interesting Humble Bundle and ended up with a copy of Torchlight for next to nothing. It's a decent game and I might play around with it a bit, but I'd like it even better if I could take it on a flash drive everywhere.

Torchlight doesn't run portably, and there is no option to do so. Instead, it uses the registry and profile folders. There are two approaches for me, as someone with no programming experience:

Approach 1: use and learn the PortableApps.com launcher to redirect the registry entries and profile folders to the portable drive. Technically cleaner, because it should only write to the portable drive, but a lot of work to learn a wonky format that may not result in a transferrable skill.

Approach 2: Approach 2: use and learn AHK methods to copy registry entries and profile folders between the PC and the portable drive. Not as clean, but perhaps a bit easier to do and with more community support. Also transferrable knowledge, as AHK is a more versatile tool.

My skill level: I can do hotkeys in AHK. I have no programming experience.

Approach 2 may proceed like this:
   - One script to unpack the stored profile to the current profile folder (incl. mods)
   - Same script unpacks the registry entries to the reg
   - Both of above overwrite anything that's already there
   - Run the game
   - Exit the game
   - Optional: Detect game exit
   - Repack the stored profile folder in portable drive
   - Delete stored profile folder
   - Repack registry entries
   - Delete registry entries

Based on what I know of AHK, this should be possible with the basic toolset. Even a basic GUI should be doable. But I don't really know what commands to rely on yet, or whether to farm this out to two or three scripts, or

Requirement: I'd like this to be portable, that is, it will run reliably on any Windows machine I use it with, regardless of drive letter assignment, and it will leave no trace behind when I'm done.

4

General Software Discussion / Using WinWget to back up a WordPress.com site?

« on: December 15, 2010, 03:02 PM »

I have some trust issues with the cloud, so I don't like keeping everything online with no offline backups. I'd like to have a local mirror of my WordPress blog (http://drfrog.wordpress.com), in case something happens. I already regularly export the XML file, but I'd like a much more thorough backup. I'm new to WinWget, and it looks pretty good, but I'm a little puzzled by the lack of documentation and the arcane command line switches. Rather than read through an online man page and go through several iterations of trial and error, I'd like a little guidance instead.

Here's what I'd like to do:
- completely mirror and have a local copy of the site, at an infinite link depth
- convert links to use local assets only
- include assets that are stored on the files subdomain (drfrog.files.wordpress.com), as winwget seems to skip over these
- be able to run and re-run a profile and have it reliably update the local copy of the site without any weird behavior

- best case scenario: be able to download the entire blog, ready to upload to a fresh server of my choice with minimal/no link conversion

thanks!

--frog

5

Post New Requests Here / NEDK - Not Enough Damn Keys (Apple Wireless Keyboard Extender)

« on: August 16, 2010, 01:45 PM »

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I love my Apple Wireless Keyboard. It's pretty great. What I don't like is that Apple has basically no interest in supporting it natively in Windows 7, and hasn't made the keyboard drivers available to the likes of myself.

This means that I don't have any of the functions offered by the Fn key. This means I've had to do without PgUp, PgDn, Delete, Home, End, PrintScrn, and the context menu.

Ideally, I'd like to get my hands on the Windows 7 64x keyboard driver that Apple should have included with the keyboard in the first place. For one thing, I'd have access to Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn by simply using Fn+Arrows.

Well, fine. I've dealt with it pretty well so far, using SharpKeys, I've reassigned a few of the buttons so that I can have a few of the above, and rearrange the Win, Alt, and Ctrl keys so they make sense to my muscle memory. But SharpKeys can only assign one button function per button, and I don't have the surplus of buttons needed to replicate them all.

So, here's what I'm after:

I want to turn the Caps Lock key into a toggler for key functions for the right shift key.

Tap the Caps Lock, and instead of toggling Caps (which I never use), it rotates between the following functions for the shift key: PgUp, PgDn, Delete, Home, End, PrintScrn. I can then tap the right shift key and use it for that function.

Further, I should be able to choose which of the keys appear in the rotation, and the order in which they rotate. This could be done in a gui or a config file, either is fine.

Finally, there should be a tray app with a status indicator as to the current key function, and an audio prompt every time the keys are toggled. Better yet, customizable sounds for each of the key functions, so I can have a voice say "Print Screen" when the PrntScrn key is activated.

This sounds like a job for AutoHotKey, can it accomplish this? Or, does someone have the Win 7 64-bit driver for the Apple Wireless Keyboard?

Note: A project called UAWKS with AHK came out that attempted to do this, but it doesn't work with the current gen of keyboards, and is essentially a dead project, largely because of the difficulty of accessing the Fn button. This is why I'm not asking for Fn button support, it's probably too hard. But if you're up to it... it'd be a much better solution.

6

Finished Programs / SOLVED: TransItSpec - 2 levels of transparency and on-top for specific windows

« on: June 29, 2010, 12:55 PM »

TransItSpec - 2 levels of transparency for specific windows

Console2 (http://gog.is/console2) has a few great little features:

- user-definable transparency when the app is selected.
- user-definable transparency when the app is in the background.
- an always-on-top option for the window.

I'd like to bring this feature to other, specific windows as well. I don't want this to affect all windows at once, just the one or two windows I define.

Use case: a window can be sitting on top of all others, but nearly invisible in its transparency. When it is clicked on, it becomes more visible. Great for crowded monitors with chat windows, running video, open consoles, or system meters.

Skrommel's Transother offers similar functionality, but it applies it like a howitzer, affecting every window on the screen. I'd like my app to be more selective.

7

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: PoMTAW - Power Management That Actually Works

« on: May 06, 2010, 06:38 PM »

Hi Coders,

I don't know if this is a problem unique to me or not, but I don't think I've ever had a PC (and I have had many) that fully respected the Power Management settings I've set in Windows. Is it non-standard hardware? Is it wimpy OS programming? Some doltish program I have running in the background that blocks proper PM? Blind luck? I don't care.

I recently moved from Windows XP to Windows 7. On XP, my screensaver would activate about half the time, and the system would go into standby correctly about half of that time. On Windows 7, nothing happens at all. The screensaver never runs, the monitor doesn't even turn off. The bottom line is that I can't really trust what Windows will do and so the settings are basically of no use to me, unless I start a betting pool based on the randomness of its behavior.

What I want is a small app to enforce the settings that Windows just doesn't seem capable of doing. To do this, it will have to:

- be able to monitor mouse and keyboard usage
- be able to monitor CPU usage
- enforce different stages of power management at user-specified times, configured separately
     - screensaver launch
     - spin down hard drives
     - turn off monitor
     - initiate standby/hibernate/shutdown
- MAJOR INTELLIGENCE BONUS: have a configurable 'mindfulness' setting that takes into account CPU usage, network activity, or disk activity.
     - if activity exceeds the above settings, do not initiate standby/hibernate/shutdown
     - thresholds can be user-entered, or the user can tell the program to figure it out on its own by sampling a 20-second period of 'typical' activity and using those values as the thresholds.

Misc Requirements:
- must run on Windows 7, 64-bit, but it does not itself have to be a 64-bit app.
- small exe, since this will have to run continuously. No memory leaks, no 100 megabyte apps.
- Ideally, it's portable: no wacky runtimes or registry diving. No .NET or JAVA, which are already ruled out by the above requirement.
- sits quietly in the system tray, and can be configured to be invisible (not in the tray, taskbar, or alt-tab) as well.
 
Now, I get the sense that something like this isn't very easy to do, especially without relying upon an existing runtime, so I won't be dismayed if there are no takers. But of course I had to give it a try.

Thanks for your time!

8

General Software Discussion / How to disable Flash from caching to disk?

« on: January 07, 2010, 04:54 PM »

Please forgive any ignorance I might be displaying here, it's mostly guesswork.

When I watch an online video, I tend to notice annoying little hesitations in the playback, where the video will freeze on a frame for a split second, but the audio doesn't. My guess is that this is Adobe Flash, busily prefetching video for smooth playback, but caching it to disk to be used moments later (and never again). Unfortunately, while this is happening, playback suffers. When disk activity ceases, playback is smooth. In fact, if I pause playback, wait for disk activity to stop, then press play, I don't see hesitation at all. So I think I've pinpointed the problem: Flash is stupid.

It's already pretty ridiculous that this act should affect video playback at all, it reveals either that Flash makes for a pretty lame video playback method, or a problem with the way my OS or hardware is working. The magical forces that play back video from RAM are/should be separate from the forces that store or retrieve data. There should only be interference if the data being retrieved is itself delayed.

Furthermore, I also use Hulu Desktop, an app that's little more than a standalone Flash player. It caches and plays back just dandy without hesitation unless there is an actual problem with retrieving data. (Also, I strongly suspect that in order to appease content providers, they prevent the app from ever storing data to disk, which helps protect streaming video from being freely stored and reused.)

So I know this can be fixed.

What I want to do is force Flash videos to store their temporary nonsense in RAM, which I have plenty of, and leave my hard drive the hell alone. Where do I configure this?

What's equally irritating is that with a web browser like Firefox, I already have plenty of control over how it works with respect to the disk. I can control disk cache, history length, whether or not it stores etc., or run it in a privacy mode that restricts disk caching of any kind. Flash bypasses all of this, like it is its own little fiefdom, it sets its own cache, its own cookies, phones home for updates, without ever presenting the user a way to configure any of this behavior. You can wipe your browser history all day long and flash cookies and goofy flash apps and such will stick around in cache until doomsday.

I know this stuff has to be configured somewhere. Where's it hiding?

9

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / NANY 2010 Idea: A 'polite' reminder/diary system

« on: November 05, 2009, 03:27 AM »

I'm looking for something fairly basic, but very specific: A rotating, automatic-prompting personal text log.

• The following happens at a user-defined interval: once every hour, half hour, five minutes, 3600 seconds, whatever.
• A small note window shows (but does not steal focus, unless the user specifies it should). It has a titlebar with a timestamp, a user-defined message, and enough editing room on it for a line or two of text. Hitting ENTER makes the window go away. No other interaction is necessary.
• The line of user-entered text is appended to a text file. A time/date stamp is affixed to the entry. As the day continues, the list of datestamped entries grows: a diary.
• The text file itself is also named with a datestamp and a user-configurable string. (ie. personal_log_11052009.txt. If the proper text file doesn't exist, it is automatically created.
• The text file is rotated into an archive folder every day, or every user-definable interval (be it seconds, minutes, days, years).
• An archive of simple text files slowly grows. A personal .log.

MOST IMPORTANT THING: POLITENESS

A reminder/diary system should never, ever, EVER steal focus away from what I'm working on. EVER! Something like this should help with workflow, not interfere with it.

Example: I love EssentialPIM's features list. I hate how it steals my attention and my keyboard focus when I'm working. Of course, it refuses to respect TweakUI's "don't steal focus" setting. I'm on XP, and will continue to be in the foreseeable future (I'm broke), so I can't make use of W7's enhanced focus stealing prevention feature.

Thus, nearly any solution I can cobble together on my own won't work, because all reminder applications I've tried ALWAYS insist upon stealing focus, no matter what I do.

Barring that, I'd still be happy to accept any light, portable software capable of the bullet list above. (.NET and JAVA apps need not apply.)

I already know I can use Notepad to do this in conjunction with basic reminder software, but that option lacks the rotating backups and the 'politeness' feature.

10

Finished Programs / DONE: Toggle mouse acceleration with a simple program

« on: September 03, 2009, 12:24 AM »

My annoyance is fairly straightforward, as well as (I would hope) its solution:

I want to toggle this with a hotkey:



THE STORY:

I bought a touchpad for my desktop to combat RSI. It's... ok, I guess. See, the driver that it comes with doesn't actually recognize the touchpad, which means that Windows sees it as a mouse. This isn't a huge problem; it works fine. Though without the driver, it lacks some customizable options, I can live with it. My mouse remains plugged in, since I will be swapping between the two devices based on the tasks I am doing.

The problem is that I now have two devices that run on the same control panel settings, and physically are two devices with different kinds of sensitivity.

The touchpad actually causes more strain without the "Enhance pointer precision," option enabled, since moving the pointer requires repeated 'scrubbing' with the fingers. With the feature enabled, I can move the pointer much more easily while retaining control.

However, this setting is far too sensitive for my mouse, which flies all over the screen like an out of control fighter plane.

To switch devices, I have to launch the Mouse applet, toggle the "Enhance pointer precision" setting manually, then resume using my input device. Without a helpful shortcut, I have to do this many times a day.

PROBLEM: Two pointing devices on one system, one that needs mouse acceleration, the other doesn't. Need an easy way to toggle the "Enhance pointer precision" setting to aid in switching between the two devices.

SOLUTION: A small program that launches, toggles the "Enhance pointer precision" setting from the Mouse control panel applet, and then closes itself. (If the setting is active, it deactivates it. If it's inactive, it activates it.)

Since this is an issue I've found with laptops I've used as well, this could be useful beyond my specific use case. I've often had to resort to touchpad on the go, and later dock, to find that my mouse is flying uncontrollably until I toggle this setting off.

Since I already use a decent hotkey manager, I don't need this to be a running program. Ideally, it would just execute, toggle the setting, and close. I can call upon the program when I need it.

BONUS: The ability to store actual mouse settings as profiles, and toggle in between them with user-configurable hotkeys. This is far beyond my own needs, of course, but this might be a more interesting challenge for some.

Thanks for your time, o programmers of tiny things.

11

Coding Snacks / IDEA: Tooler-like GUI and shortcut maker for NirCmd

« on: June 01, 2009, 01:54 PM »

NirCmd is a fine program, a fine program, I say! I'm also a terribly lazy man who is spoiled by good GUIs and usability, and I want an easier, more intuitive way to use this utility, similar to Tooler, as described by FreewareGenius. Tooler screenshot.

NirCmd is a great program focused on function, but a little short on usability. Using a command line or Windows shortcuts, you can execute any number of shell features, changing volume, opening and closing CD drawers, running your screensaver, or any from a staggering list of features.

Unfortunately, to do any of this requires knowledge of the program's command line switches, since it seems to lack any sort of GUI. This means that to use the program, you must:

1) Create a generic Windows shortcut to the program.
2) Look up the appropriate command line switches in the help file.
3) Add the command line switches to the shortcut.
4) Test the shortcut to make sure you didn't screw it up.

This doesn't rate real high on the usability scale.

The preferred usage would be similar to Tooler:

1) Launch a GUI.
2) Choose from a list of functions, set your desired variable, if applicable. (For example, Set Volume -> Wave -> to 50% -> Create shortcut.)
3) You're prompted with a file save dialog to place the shortcut.

This seems like it would be a fairly short order, but it's a little tall, since there are so many ways to use NirCmd. For the purposes of keeping this a snack, I suggest that, at a minimum, the GUI program at least offer the first thirty or so features detailed on NirCmd's example table, shown here.

Bonus: make the GUI extensible, such that additional shortcut types can be created by the user. For example, if the GUI includes a way to change the Master Volume, but not the Wave setting, the user can add this feature into the GUI by editing a text file or options dialog.

The personal level: Tooler is a great little program, but I want something more powerful. NirCmd is more powerful, but much less usable. A GUI app would be a good middle ground.

Thanks for your time and indulgence! 

12

General Software Discussion / deploying windows sound themes (XP, specifically)

« on: May 13, 2009, 02:40 PM »

Hi all. Using the fun little freeware video game sound generator sfxr, I've created my own little sound theme for Windows XP. I'd like to be able to be able to offer the sound theme to others for easy installation, but the only apparent way to do this is to provide the individual .wav files and leave it up to the user to manually add them using the Sounds and Audio Settings control panel applet, which is a bit of a trial.

I would also use this method personally to switch between different sound themes on my own machine, as well as deploy on my personal Windows machines here at home. It would be really convenient.

Is there a way to deploy an executable or .inf file that will automatically assign .wav files for Windows event sounds? The solution should be standalone, not relying upon installing other software just to get a sound theme. I know this is possible because back in the Windows '95 days, Microsoft offered a handful of sound themes like Robotz and Utopia that would install via a .inf file.

Thanks.

13

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request: Most frequently executed programs instead of most recent

« on: December 28, 2008, 09:50 PM »

I think I spent about a half hour looking for this option within FARR because it seems like such an obvious default feature:

On launching FARR, rather than display the n most recent programs, I'd much rather FARR keep track of those programs I launch most frequently, and present those instead. If I've launched Opera 100 times, Outlook 60, and Hamachi 12, I should see Opera in the number one position, followed by Outlook at 2, and Hamachi at 3. As it is, I don't see that, I see only the programs in reverse order in which I've launched them, regardless of how popular or necessary they are.

The reason for this is personal, but also rooted in a desire for greater usability overall. As it is, the list FARR provides by default is ever-shifting, ever-changing, essentially as random and unpredictable as my tasks and program needs. I could execute iTunes 70 times a day, but it would appear sporadically on that menu. Sometimes it would be number 1, or next number 7, or not on the menu at all, if I've managed to launch more than 10 items since the last time I launched iTunes. Instead of developing an instinct where iTunes actually is on the menu and hitting the corresponding number key or clicking on it, I have to actually look for it every time, which makes this initial pop-up menu useless. It's less of a hassle for me to type out 'itu' and hit enter than to even look at this menu, or (groan), create a hotkey for iTunes to be launched (which is not a possibility if I am using a portable version of FARR).

I emphasize: a random menu is a useless menu.

FARR's core strength is 'learning' what I mean when I type in a keyword. It seems obvious that it should also learn what my favorite programs are, and present them to me in an intelligent (if not slightly eerie) fashion.

To the anticipated argument that the Windows Start Menu provides this option already: I use an alternate shell (bblean) and do not have access to this feature. Even users that have access to this feature within Windows may prefer it to be emulated in FARR, and as I've stated, FARR's ever-shifting initial display is less useful than this alternative, so this request is not spurious. This feature also allows the nerdier fractions of our personalities to track trends in our favorite programs...

Implementation: I'm not going to pretend that I'm a programmer, but it seems to me that this would necessitate a second scoring system, which increments by a certain amount each time a program is launched. Thus, higher scoring apps 'float' to the top. The separate scoring system would also allow user control over 'clearing' the score of an app that did not deem a position on the menu. I can only imagine that this is a programatic hassle, and I understand if this feature request elicits a groan or two.

Mouser, community, thank you for your time.

14

Post New Requests Here / DONE: Autopick custom icons for folders based on resources in folder

« on: February 01, 2008, 07:07 AM »

This is an idea I had a while back, and blogged about, back when I cared about blogs: http://doctorfrog.bl...lector-software.html

Basically, I want a function similar to the way Windows will sometimes change folder icons based on what's inside them, except I want the .ico or .exe icons present inside the folder to be used instead of icons of stock images of music notes or flowers. This is one of those things that sounds simple to a non-programmer, lucky me if it actually ends up being simple to execute.

There are a few (somewhat more complicated) extensions to this idea as well (consider them nice-to-haves):
- if the resources within the folder are image files, auto-pick one of them and create an .ico from it, then apply as custom folder icon
- offer ability to create rules to apply stock icons based on the majority file types within the folder (ie. if the folder contains mainly .mp3s, apply a certain icon image)
- ability to recurse and apply icons for subdirectories, or only apply to the top tier of directories the application is aimed at
- support for creating/scaling very large icon files, for those persons who pump up their icon sizes beyond 32x32

Here's a copy of my original blog post blatherings:

I wasted some time late last week picking custom icons for some folders on my Windows XP box:



Avoiding actual work, I headed over to my games folder and started doing the same:



And I noticed something. Mostly, to pick an icon, you go to the only .exe in the folder, or the only .exe with an embedded icon, or the only .ico in the folder, and select it as your folder icon. It is a repeated, mechanical process, something that can be handled with a fairly simple program.

Such a program can be sent to crawl among a top-layer collection of folders, crib the most likely icons to be used for the folders, and present them to the user for approval, similar to Album Cover Art Downloader. If no appropriate icons are found, the program can offer a standard selection of icons from a specified .icl or folder full of icons (I'm partial to foood's delicious icons, as shown above).

All of the icons in the second image above exist in their respective folders, and are, in most cases, the only icons in the folder. They'd be ideal for this program, since they can be automatically assigned. If there are other icons in the folders, the program can just pick one and present it, along with alternate icons, for approaval, similar to Album Cover Art Downloader. I keep a bunch of general-purpose icons in a folder, and Windows of course has its Shell32.dll. If no icons are found to autopimp the folder (hey, hey! great software name!), these resources can be presented to the user to hand-pick an icon.

The following logic can be applied to automatically pick the 'correct' icon:
If there is only one icon available (.ico, .icl, .exe), use it. Otherwise: Use the icon with the highest resolution, most colors, etc. (This avoids picking an icon from a .exe that isn't the main program in the folder, since icons designed to represent a program usually contain multiple resolution and color depth versions, and 'helper'programs are often given a more generic icon.)

Does something like this exist? And, am I the only one who thinks it should?