True, This application started out as a displayer of hotkeys. But I agree that it would be very useful to have other info. available for a program that might not be in a help file. There are many times that I am seeking a way to do something in a program & the help file or manual doesn't explain how to do it. I then experiment, eventually figuring out how to do it (either the features buried & I find it, or I work out a kludge). I then would really like to have a way to keep notes on how I did it for the next time. A lot of times I also think that other people might like to know what I figured out.
To this end, why not have 2 tabs on a cheat sheets window. 1 for the hotkeys, & the other for other info.. This info. could be user and/or DC supplied & kept in a text file or .rtf file. The folder structure for the program & existance of files in subfolders would allow for dynamic loading of these files. The names of the files would be the same, just in different folders with different file extensions. Such as:
CheatSheeter
|--> CheatSheets
| |--> Internet Explorer.html
| |--> LotusNotes.html
| |--> MS Word.html
| |--> Netscape.html
| |--> ...
|
|--> FAQs
|--> Internet Explorer.rtf
|--> LotusNotes.rtf
|--> MS Word.rtf
|--> Netscape.rtf
|--> ...
By separating the cheatsheets & FAQs into separate folders, it keeps users from getting confused as to which
file to edit to add their information to. And it allows the program to quickly determine whether or not it needs to display a 2nd tab for the applications FAQ.
RTF files for the FAQs might be better since users could use wordpad or another word processor that they
are already using that outputs to RTF files. It would also allow users to easily include pictures, tables,
columns, etc. into their FAQs.
The 1 downside to using RTF files is that we would have to be able to display both HTML & RTF files. Which of course ups the complexity of the program. We could use RTF files for the cheat sheets as well for the same reasons.
i've decided to use a menu bar instead of dropdown or tabs.. let's see how it goes - it will let us have a menu for Favorites, Recent, Application, All, so that it will be easy to organize cheat sheets and select them in different ways.
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I'm not trying to force a drop-down list, & I do like the idea of having major categories like Favorites, recents, and all. But I think that menus would still be restrictive when it comes to a large # of cheat sheets. At some point the menu that contains each of the cheat sheets would become too cumbersome unless you are able to scroll the menus. A Drop-down list(s) that would stay within a certain amount of screen space, can be essentially infinite in length & can scroll, are more flexible. There could be more than 1 drop-down box. Each category could have its own. Or a 2nd drop-down box could select the category & as soon as that is selected, the other drop-down list would dynamically change to comply with what's in the category list.
BTW: I've been thinking about which would be better, hiding bar or popup window. I think they should both be
included. This is because I've just started using PanelHider which allows you to have application windows reside
in auto hiding bars on the side(s), top, & bottom of the screen. There can be multiple layers of these at each place. But it would be very hard to distinguish between these apps. & another program doing the same thing.
In this instance, being able to specify that CS's GUI is popup instead of hiding bar is a very good thing.
I also thought of some utilities that make the corners of the screen into hotspots. These hotspots activate whatever you tell it to when the mouse moves into its area. This would be a way for us to popup CS without the need for either a hotkey or clicking onto the system tray icon. Could this mousing/hotspot capability be implemented in CS?
Regards
Dragonrider