Messages

176

General Software Discussion / Re: I want to ALT-TAB between ALL apps

« on: February 07, 2008, 07:34 PM »

Jesus Christ! That's not workflow, but workavalanche.

-Lashiec (February 07, 2008, 11:57 AM)

Indeed it is so fast to switch apps it looks dizzying, but you can do it at any speed you want...

Dexpot is great for Windows users and I do recommend it still. The shortcomings are really workflow issues. It sometimes forces you to use mouse, and sometimes keyboard which is most frustrating. And it is a bit buggy (keyboard triggers don't always trigger). But do give Wez's shell a thought too, as its more of a rethink of the desktop than Explorer+dexpot...

177

General Software Discussion / Re: I want to ALT-TAB between ALL apps

« on: February 07, 2008, 11:41 AM »

Dexpot is klunky, but only because XP itself has klunky UI drawing. I've never understood quite why Apple can do smooth fluid UI on old hardware with such a tiny CPU hit, whereas XP on Beefy machines stutters UI drawing? And indeed Compiz flows on the identical machine XP klunks on (a freind gee-wizzed me with his Ubuntu, *very* silky smooth and sexy). Yet as XP is the gaming platform of choice the graphics drivers have to be more optimised. I read somewhere that XP does use hardware when drawing, so it is not only a hardware vs. software distinction, but XP doesn't/can't composite in hardware? Vista does, so I don't get why it uses so many more resources than Quartz/Compiz...

178

General Software Discussion / Re: I want to ALT-TAB between ALL apps

« on: February 07, 2008, 04:47 AM »

Hm, I regularly use Dexpot on XP, and while it is about the best thing I've tried on Windows there are a few annoying buglets.

What I didn't realise though is Dexpot indeed has an Exposé mode, which is named "Window catalogue". And it has a full-screen preview as Spaces does. So it is indeed along the same lines. But in terms of "workflow", it is still not really close. First off, spaces+exposé work together. So you can exposé while you are previewing all desktops. Desktops are live, video keeps playing, and you can *very* quickly organise your open windows. You can drag windows from desktop to desktop.

To manage windows in Dexpot you can only use the Desktop panel, little "pictures" of the desktop where you an drag the window representations around. The Exposé mode is not live, and it cannot work in Desktop Preview mode. I'm not sure why but sometimes the exposé-alike fails to trigger, leaving you pressing the hotkey again or fumbling with the mouse. It is all a bit klunky, but it comes as close as you'll get sans dongle...

Here is a screencast of all of this working together. First I show spaces, then spaces and exposé integration, then Dexpot preview manager, the exposé-alike and the full-screen preview at work in Windows:

http://nontroppo.org...paces_and_dexpot.mov

179

General Software Discussion / Re: I want to ALT-TAB between ALL apps

« on: February 06, 2008, 04:35 PM »

Lashiec: the awesomely great, but ever so geeky Dr Evil Desktop offers both multiple workscreens and an expose mode within work screens. It is an Explorer replacement in the bbwin tradition, but has a whole heap of productivity enhancements that rock. It also uses less resources than explorer making it great for minimal overhead installs:

http://download.chip...Desk-0.9_228673.html

It has no start menu (thank god!) and even includes a quick launcher ala FARR into the mix!

(though being biased, I'd suggest ponying up on that dongle! Nothing on Win comes close to the integration and elegance of Spaces+Exposé )

180

General Software Discussion / Re: Plain text editor for writers

« on: February 06, 2008, 12:14 PM »

Scrivener == 

It is the best writers app I've tried and one of the best productivity apps I've had the pleasure of using in my time using computers. As I have friends who only have PCs who I dearly want to wean off word for writing I've tested just about *everything* I could find. But sadly there is nothing like it on the PC (PageFour is the best of the bunch). The Mac is stuffed to the gills with great writing software; Scrivener, Ulysses, Avenir, Mariner and a whole gaggle of others.

Q10 as a minimalist interface is the closest I can get to the fullscreen heaven of Scrivener, Writeroom, Ulysses etc. I recommend it as a way to change the way you write, the starkness forces you to stop twiddling your gadgets, eyeing your email notifier etc.

Here is a nice article on the vanguard of writers software:

Our redeemer is Scrivener, the independently produced word-processing program of the aspiring novelist Keith Blount, a Londoner who taught himself code and graphic design and marketing, just to create a software that jibes with the way writers think. As its name makes plain, Scrivener takes our side; it roots for the writer and not for the final product — the stubborn Word. The happy, broad-minded, process-friendly Scrivener software encourages note-taking and outlining and restructuring and promises all the exhilaration of a productive desk: “a ring-binder, a scrapbook, a corkboard, an outliner and text editor all rolled into one.”

Ring, scrap and cork sound like fun, a Montessori playroom. But read on — and download the free trial — and being a Scrivener-empowered scrivener comes to seem like life’s greatest role. Scriveners, unlike Word-slaves, have florid psychologies, esoteric requirements and arcane desires. They’re artists. They’re historians. With needs. Scrivener is “aimed at writers of all kinds — novelists, journalists, academics, screenwriters, playwrights — who need to refer to various research documents and have access to different organizational tools whilst aiming to create a finished piece of text.”

http://www.nytimes.c...ogin&oref=slogin

181

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera M2 + Gmail + IMAP = not recommended

« on: February 05, 2008, 01:45 PM »

Yes, ghost mails are a hard-to-track down bug in 9.5.

Changes in IMAP?

Rachid Finge: How would you rate Opera’s current IMAP implementation in comparison to those of your main competitors? I especially mean Thunderbird, which seems industry leader when it comes to IMAP protocol support. What kind of rework are you planning when it comes to IMAP?

and

Graste: What improvements will the new IMAP backend bring in Kestrel and Peregrine? Will the IMAP standards support be similar complete as in clients like Mulberry?

A: As Graste mentioned, Kestrel contains a rewritten IMAP backend, based strictly on the IMAP standard, with (improved) support for features such as nested folders, keywording and working offline.

I wouldn’t exactly call Thunderbird the industry leader when it comes to IMAP support - Mulberry takes that one hands down. However, I don’t think we’ll easily be able to support the amount of IMAP extensions that Mulberry supports: Mulberry is a client that’s specifically designed around the IMAP protocol, while M2 is a client with its own design that supports IMAP as one of the possible protocols for the messages it stores. In other words, our goal is not to support as many features and extensions of IMAP as possible, but to make M2’s way of handling messages work seamlessly with as many IMAP servers as possible. We take a similar approach to Thunderbird in that respect.

http://operawatch.co...ory/news/mail-client

182

General Software Discussion / Re: Mini-HowTo: Handling Cookie Privacy the Right Way

« on: February 05, 2008, 10:48 AM »

There is another way to handle cookie management in Opera, IE and Safari, which is to disallow 3rd-party cookies by default. This stops ad servers setting cookies and gets rid of most of the detrimental tracking cookies.

BUT, Opera follows the HTTP/1.1 specs to the letter, and disallows 3rd party cookies even on redirects. This actually breaks quite a few sites. Therefore, Lashiec's method is also the one I recommend for Opera users. In fact, this white-list method is really great, and the best way to deal with cookies, all the benefits on "good sites" with none of the dangers anywhere else.

IE and Safari bend the rules with 3rd-party cookies, compromising security for login convenience AFAICT. You may still hit snags, and 3rd-party blocking is not what I'd recommend for novices. Firefox used to have 3rd-party cookie control, but removed it some time ago, thus forcing you to use extensions. The extension I tried (forget its name now!) was good, allowing per site overrides as Opera allows.

183

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a compression (algorithm) "Best Practices" sheet

« on: February 05, 2008, 10:40 AM »

I don't know of a document per se, but this site tests various compression apps against single file and multiple documents. From it I think you can work out which apps are best for which tasks:

http://www.maximumco...ssion.com/index.html

184

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera M2 + Gmail + IMAP = not recommended

« on: February 05, 2008, 10:35 AM »

The problem with IMAP folders is due to GMail, according to the M2 dev at Opera...

Note that IMAP support in 9.5 is much improved over 9.25 overall.

185

General Software Discussion / Re: Interesting new security freeware in december 2007

« on: February 04, 2008, 10:10 AM »

Secunia doesn't say good things about Opera! Less vulnerabilities != safer browser!

-Lusher (February 04, 2008, 09:39 AM)

Link, please?

-Lashiec (February 04, 2008, 09:56 AM)

Probably the report from last year:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=206

But note this is not to do with Opera security per se, but with version adoption rates by users. Opera users, due to the fact they have to download updates themselves, are less likely to have an up-to-date version. So even though Opera have some of the fastest vulnerability->patch release times, and small numbers of reported vulnerabilities (though note its disclosure procedure is different to Firefox), Opera users may not always update their software (lazy bunch! ;-)). This is hopefully going to change as rumours of an auto-updater have surfaced.

Edit: IIRC, note the percentages are those not running the latest version, it actually says *nothing* about the numbers actually running with a vulnerability. If V55 of browser X is the latest version and it still has 10 vulnerabilities, the even if everyone upgrades to the latest version it doesn't really mean they are safer.

186

Find And Run Robot / Re: Enso 2 redesign...

« on: February 03, 2008, 04:09 AM »

  (though I like quasimodal mode personally :p)

First, the learning algorithm means one can create on the fly, and with usage time, their own reduced shortcuts for the various actions the program has

Quicksilver does this, and I've suggested elsewhere that it would be a nice feature for FARR to have. Basically FARR currently weights results with scores, but if it weighted entered text to results too you would get fragment learning over time. That would improve FARRs heuristics. Along with the other heuristic rules, FARR would actually have the most advanced matching in the world!

And finally, the resume option. I like that, it does exactly what it suggests, sending Enso to sleep with the already inputted options and bringing it up with another hotkey stroke, something that could be easily integrated with FARR (I think somebody already asked for it...)

Yep, this is a nice idea...

187

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR review

« on: February 03, 2008, 04:03 AM »

I think Dash *is* powerful and well thought out, though another developer whose hyperbole matches the code size!

"Dash can change your life..."

http://www.trydash.c...ome/dash-video-tour/

 

188

General Software Discussion / Re: Apple software recommendations?

« on: February 02, 2008, 07:44 PM »

Preview (the default image viewer) will resize and/or crop images in Leopard at least, and I've also heard that iPhoto and/or Mail can scale pictures down for you (I use neither, I prefer Adobe Lightroom with a passion for photos, and Opera for mail).

What I can *highly* recommend in terms of simplicity (yet buried power) is ImageWell:

http://xtralean.com/IWOverview.html

It has a really nice UI, simple resizing is available at the go, but there is a more advanced edit mode and functions. It is free.

189

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« on: February 01, 2008, 07:52 AM »

Just timed (average of two!) on my Macbook with 10.5.1:

To login screen from chime: 22 seconds
From login to ability to run an app: 7 seconds

Startup on OS X is similar to windows, there are system daemons that run before login, and user daemons that run after login. After login, I have 6 processes (outbound firewall UI, Font manager activating some 40 fonts, iCal scheduler, alarm clock, mouse gestures app and Quicksilver) that run. The first mouseover of the dock is a bit jerky for about a second, but it is useable. Annoyingly though, Quicksilver reindexes its catalog on start so it takes an additional 6-10 seconds before I can use it.

Also important for a laptop is *shutdown* speed, and that is fast, about 6-10 seconds.

The thing I love about OS X is there doesn't appear to be any slowdown over time. On my XP partition on the same machine, XP used to boot fast, but over time it takes longer to boot. This is after cleaning consistently, managing startup items with autoruns, defragging etc. And shutdown with XP is infuriatingly inconsistent, sometimes fast but often it just sits there for way too long...

190

Find And Run Robot / Re: Enso 2 redesign...

« on: February 01, 2008, 05:59 AM »

mouser: just drink more koolaid!

191

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera Browser Power-User Mods

« on: February 01, 2008, 05:42 AM »

kiwi2b: you need to browse the trunk source, e.g. the direct URL is:

http://code.google.c...runk/WebDev_Menu.ini
http://code.google.c...k/WebDev_Toolbar.ini

You need to save them and manually place them in the correct directory in your profile folder.

192

Find And Run Robot / Enso 2 redesign...

« on: January 31, 2008, 07:25 PM »

This is an interesting article from the Humanized guys on what was wrong in Enso 1 and what will be improved in Enso 2. They are taking their contentious quasimodal interface and modifying it so only the VERB is entered in that mode, the noun/action is modal (or not as they think). Food for though for FARR 3.

http://humanized.com...-20-design-thoughts/

193

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR review

« on: January 31, 2008, 04:30 PM »

Finally Lifehacker acknowledges more than just Launchy exists on Windows! 

It would be great to get FARR 2 out of reluctant beta status and into the wild, surely it is no more buggy than any of the others?

194

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera Browser Power-User Mods

« on: January 31, 2008, 04:27 PM »

Wow, you guys have been pretty comprehensive! Hopefully, before 9.5 comes out I'd hope we could have a better integrated place for sharing Opera tips. I haven't added User JS to the wiki like OSpell as there used to be a dedicated site for User JS but it is currently frozen, so maybe I should add some basic User JS. OK, here are some more power tweaks to satiate you:

Fast navigate with Nicknames:
If your bookmarks have nicknames, you can press SHIFT+F2 to bring up a nickname dialog. As you start typing, as soon as you have entered enough letters to uniquely identify the bookmark you will automatically go there.

BBCode Menu:
You can add a BBcode submenu to your textedit menu, so you select text and can apply BBcode markup: http://operawiki.info/BbCode

Send selected text to an online clipboard (cl1p):
Add this to the [Hotclick Popup Menu] section of your menu.ini:

[Select]

Item, "Add to Web Clipboard (Cl1p.net)"="Go to page, "javascript:(function(){if (window.getSelection()) {var s = window.getSelection();} else if (document.getSelection) {var s = document.getSelection();} else if (document.selection) {var s = document.selection.createRange().text;};var reply=prompt('Name of the clip?','').split(' ');var name=reply[0];var myURL='http://cl1p.net/'+encodeURI(reply)+'?nl=yes&A='+escape(s)+escape(' [copied from: '+document.location+']');window.open(myURL,'Cl1p.net','location=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=yes');})()""

(this is included in the latest version of my Web Developer menu)

Google cache a link, and send a link to TinyURL:
Add this to the [link Popup Menu] section of your menu.ini:

[Select]

Item, "Cache of page (Google)" = "Copy link & New page & Go to page, "http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=opera&q=cache:%c""
Item, "TinyURL this Link (TinyURL)" = "Copy link & New page & Go to page, "http://tinyurl.com/create.php?url=%c""

(this is included in the latest version of my Web Developer menu)

Send an image directly to ImageShack:
Add this to both the [Image Popup Menu] and [Image Link Popup Menu] section of your menu.ini:

[Select]

Item, "Send to ImageShack" =Copy image address & Go to page, "http://imageshack.us/transload.php?url=%c"

(this is included in the latest version of my Web Developer menu)

GMail 2 Fixes:
This really cool User JS fixes a bunch of bugs in Gmail to get it to work almost flawlessly in Opera 9.5:
http://futurama.goog...s.com/gmail_2_fix.js

Google Images Bypass:
Essential User JS to allow Google image results thumbnails to link directly to the image, rather than a framed page: http://userjs.org/sc...ogleimages-thumblink

Advanced Mouse gestures:
Here are some examples to give you ideas:

Toggle my hotlist panel, my view toolbar and personal bookmark toolbars on/off in one go (minimalist/maximalist toggle!):

[Select]

GestureLeft,GestureRight,GestureLeft=Set alignment, "hotlist", 6 & Set alignment, "document view toolbar",6 & Set alignment, "Personalbar", 6 | Set alignment, "hotlist", 0 & Set alignment, "document view toolbar",0 & Set alignment, "Personalbar", 0

Show the cookies for the current page by drawing C:

[Select]

GestureLeft,GestureDown,GestureRight=Go to page, "javascript:alert('Cookies stored by this host or domain:\n\n' + document.cookie.replace(/; /g,'\n'));", 1

Power navigation gestures; I like to have my browsing history without having to move the mouse, and this batch gets me my forward/back history with a tiny flick of the hand:

[Select]

GestureLeft, GestureRight, GestureLeft="Show popup menu, "Internal Rewind History""
GestureRight, GestureLeft="Show popup menu, "Internal Forward History""
GestureLeft, GestureRight="Show popup menu, "Internal Back History""

As I love the "Go to nickname" function, I also have it bound to a mouse gesture:

[Select]

GestureUp, GestureDown, GestureUp=Go to nickname

If any of you want a custom menu made with the Cl1p/tinyURL/Google cache/ImageShack/BBCode tweaks added in let me know and I'll whip one up for you.

The latest version of my Web Developer tools (lots of power user functionality in there too, new version only for 9.5, older version for 9.25 from http://operawiki.info/WebDevToolbar) is available from:

http://code.google.c...oolbar/source/browse

You have to manually put them in your profile/Menu and profile/Toolbars directories respectively. To toggle the toolbar on/off, you need to customize your toolbars and add the View toolbar toggle button (customize... > buttons > browser view > view button).

195

General Software Discussion / Re: Current IE8 build renders the ACID2 Test correctly!

« on: January 25, 2008, 08:20 AM »

Sheesh, even Joe Wilcox is now skeptical about the Microsoft splinter strategy:

What are Microsoft's real objectives here? I ask, because to me they are suspect. Wilson argues that the new "http-equiv='X-UA-Compatible'" switch is a necessary compromise to ensure backwards compatibility while allowing Microsoft's browser to better adhere to Web standards. But the approach really requires adherence to an IE standard that benefits Microsoft's dominant Web browser.

I would like to see Microsoft educating Web designers and developers about writing to standards supporting any browsing engine. I find it ironic that by default Microsoft's Expression Web creates standards-based Web pages that IE 7 might gag on.

I ask: Is the IE 8 switch a competing browser kill switch?

http://www.microsoft...WRSS02129TX1K0000535

app103: being able to handle errors consistently in CSS *is* part of the standard:
http://www.w3.org/TR....html#parsing-errors

196

General Software Discussion / Re: Current IE8 build renders the ACID2 Test correctly!

« on: January 23, 2008, 10:27 AM »

And specifically related to Acid2 and IE8, Ian Hickson (who authored Acid2) says this:

It will be interesting to see whether IE8 really supports Acid2, since that test page doesn't include any of the special magic words being proposed here. Will they hard-code the URI? Will they check every page against a fingerprint and if it matches the fingerprint of the Acid2 page, trigger the IE8 quirks mode instead of the IE7 quirks mode?

Note Acid3 is also in the works and getting close to completion:

http://ln.hixie.ch/?...00301306&count=1

197

General Software Discussion / Re: Current IE8 build renders the ACID2 Test correctly!

« on: January 23, 2008, 10:24 AM »

Ian Hickson's take:

If Web authors actually use this feature, and if IE doesn't keep losing market share, then eventually this will cause serious problems for IE's competitors — instead of just having to contend with reverse-engineering IE's quirks mode and making the specs compatible with IE's standards mode, the other browser vendors are going to have to reverse engineer every major IE browser version, and end up implementing these same bug modes themselves. It might actually be quite an effective way of dramatically increasing the costs of entering or competing in the browser market. (This is what we call "anti-competitive", or "evil".)

Big sites will become locked in to particular IE version numbers, unable to upgrade their content for fear of it breaking. Imagine in 18 years — only twice the current lifetime of the Web! — designers will not have to learn just HTML, they'll have to learn 4, 5, maybe 10 different versions of HTML, DOM, CSS, and JS, just to be able to maintain the various different pages that people have written, as they move from job to job.

http://ln.hixie.ch/?...01080691&count=1

From Opera's Hallvord Steen:

Browsers will have to support an unmanageable and confusing mess of different rendering modes (and the PocketIE team will hate you for the bloat).
Because the META tag affects every part of the page, progressively enhancing such pages with new CSS features will be harder.

http://my.opera.com/...log/show.dml/1688321

And more from Mozilla's Robert O'Callahan:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="X-BALL-CHAIN">

;-) http://weblogs.mozil.../2008/01/post_2.html

The webkit team also ain't drinking the coolaid:

So, in conclusion, we don’t see a great need to implement version targeting in Safari. We think maintaining multiple versions of the engine would have many downsides for us and little upside.

http://webkit.org/bl...ility-and-standards/

This is like an 8.5-9 on the web developer richter scale...

198

General Software Discussion / Re: starting a revolt against Opera. Worth it?

« on: January 19, 2008, 12:06 PM »

A reasonable assessment? (I'd be petitioning for greater community input for mobile products.)

-Plasma Man (January 19, 2008, 12:04 AM)

Opera have publicly stated their commitment to Desktop, and the resources that go into it (and the returns they get off it), justify that continuation in and of itself. Where Opera are clearly moving though is in unifying the web irrespective of what device you are using. Opera Link is the first step in that process, but expect to see syncing on a much greater level. The idea is that it will be irrelevant if you are on a cheap Motorola mobile, a nintendo DS, a Nokia web tablet, a mini-PC, or a desktop, you can use your data via a consistent interface.

Opera Mini is a sensational app allowing millions who've never surfed the oppourtunity to do so. And unlike some other vendors (Apple for example where iPhone-only sites are blooming), Opera have pushed strongly for a unified web, universal access and open standards.

199

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« on: January 18, 2008, 06:56 AM »

I don't remember about Windows firewalls, but my outbound filter Little Snitch gives you the parent app, so:

APPX called WGET to request blah on port 80

Thus you know from who the request is really from, not just who is making it. I'm pretty sure  many apps do this?

200

General Software Discussion / Re: starting a revolt against Opera. Worth it?

« on: January 17, 2008, 11:59 AM »

What is the particular feature? I'd be happy to support a constructive cause, Vive la Revolución! 

By constructive, I mean the more a feature is fleshed out with UI mockups and usercase scenarios, the better traction it will receive. I have numerous threads in the wishlist forum myself I'd love to see included. Other wishes have finally arrived (page indexing in 9.5 being my current fave).

As someone who has some insight into Opera, I can tell you that the wishlist is read, and valid wishes are added to their internal feature tracking list. But Opera has some clear development principles they are pretty clear about (no API for a whole raft of reasons). I've discussed about an API, and they are pretty clear that the rendering core is both more stable and more secure as those possible attack vectors are not available. That makes Opera less flexible, and I know several users on this forum and doubtlessly elsewhere who refuse to use Opera as it doesn't support Roboform. Personally I choose not to use Roboform as it doesn't work with Opera.