Topics

26

General Software Discussion / Software for Managing the Production of a Magazine

« on: May 12, 2019, 10:24 PM »

Every other month I publish a childrens' magazine - about 800 copies with 1200 readers.  I have several authours and illustrators, and I write and illustrate, too, but I'm having a hard time keeping track of what should be in future issues, who is doing what article, and what needs to be done.  I've tried doing it in all sorts of ways.

I also have access to full office365, but I'm not sure how to leverage that do do what I need.

Is there an open-source/freeware software that can help handle these things?  Anyone have any good ideas?

27

General Software Discussion / Sign Up Sheets

« on: April 05, 2019, 10:50 AM »

We are looking for a way to create our own online signup sheets.

I am thinking about where folks could go to a web page and enter their name and email address, and be able to return later, perhaps, to remove or edit their entry.

There are all sorts of these things online, usually with subscription pricing.  But I could also run such a thing on my own webserver.

Anyone have an experience in this realm?

28

N.A.N.Y. 2019 / NANY 2019: TextWorx - Universal Text Manipulator

« on: December 28, 2018, 12:01 PM »

NANY 2019 Entry Information

Application Name	TextWorx
Version	1.4 Thursday, May 16, 2019
Short Description	A universal text manipulator managed via context menu. See screenshot attached.
Supported OSes	Windows
Web Page	http://www.dcmembers...r/download/textworx/
Download Link	http://www.dcmembers.../download/textworx/#
Documentation	http://www.dcmembers...tes/32/help/textworx
System Requirements	Tested on Windows 7
Author	bgmCoder --> http://www.dcmembers.com/bgmcoder/about/

Description
There are many text editors out there, and not all of them have the text-manipulation functions that you always want or need.  TextWorx is designed to give you a slew of text-manipulation functions at your disposal for whatever text editor you wish to work with.  It has a universal context menu and custom toolbar/s that you open with a hotkey.  First select your text, then call the menu, then the function that you wish to run against that text.

I've longed to share it for a very long time and have been working on and off with it for over 8 years.
Take a look at the online help (although it comes with the same help as a local chm file); there are screenshots, credits and version history there.

Default Global hotkeys (but you can customize them)
win+K to show the menu
win+shift+K to toggle the toolbar

After you have the menu open (or when you push a toolbar button):

• hold shift to reverse the effect (in many cases)
• hold control to work the effect on each line in the selection
• hold control+shift to do both

.

For example, if you want to encase a word in double-quotes, just select the text, then select the function from the menu.

• To remove double-quotes, hold shift when you select the function.
• To encase each line in double-quotes, hold control when you select the function.
• To remove double-quotes from each line, hold control+shift when you select the function.

Features
Universal context menu for text editors. 

• Use either Menu or Toolbar - both are completely customizable
• Over 150 commands - many are unique to TextWorx
• Completely customizable global hotkeys for Menu, Toolbar and for ANY Command
• Modify single words, or multiple lines.
• Easily comment and uncomment code.
• Quickly create html ordered/unordered lists and inserting html tags.
• Number and renumber lines (complete with padding and custom number parameters).
• Sort lines.
• Insert preset text snippets and characters.
• Insert the date in multiple fashions.
• Quickly convert slashes.
• Toolbar buttons for cut, copy paste using two clipboards
• Paste as Text, and Send selection to Notepad
• Search and Replace multiple criteria - example: replace all State abbeviations with their names (and vice versa).
• Authour takes requests for new commands (the most fun part of it all)

Screenshots



Usage
Installation
Just extract the contents of the zip file and run the executable.

Using the Application
To use this program, first select some text, then push the hotkey, then select your text-manipulation routine.  The text is transformed and replaced right in your editor.

Uninstallation
Just delete all the files.

29

Living Room / Salvage parts from Control4 for DIY?

« on: August 31, 2018, 09:58 AM »

I have an old control4 hc-500, and am wondering if there is any way to salvage parts from it to use in some DIY automation project.  It has all sorts of connectors and even an IR controller.  Do any of you have an idea of how to re-use any of these parts for something interesting besides craft projects?  Maybe someone knows of some sites that tell about how to do things like this?  In fact, I have all kinds of old computers and parts.

30

Screenshot Captor / Ragged Edges effect as standalone app

« on: April 30, 2018, 11:45 AM »

Mouser, I LOVE the ragged edges effect produced by Screenshot Captor.  Is it possible to make this into a standalone application?
(another thing I would like is that it would remember my last-used settings)

31

General Software Discussion / Good, Free Desktop RSS Editor

« on: April 09, 2018, 09:47 PM »

We have a local LAN website and I keep an RSS Feed there for some technical news.
It is a bit painful to edit those feed.xml files manually, so I use a program called RSS Builder.
Problem is that it is ancient, has no Recent Menu, no drag-n-drop, etc, and no updates for 10 years.

So I would love to find a good alternative.  Free is important.
I've tried all the free ones I can find via websearch and like RSS Builder the best of all, but I still don't like even that one.
Now, I would make my own, but I don't have the time.
Ideas, anyone?

32

Screenshot Captor / Copy BOTH image and path simultaneously

« on: March 28, 2018, 12:13 PM »

Mouser,

Here is my feature request:  add another post-capture option which will copy BOTH the image data AND the file path of the screenshot file to the clipboard together at the same time.

The Windows clipboard is capable of holding more than one kind of format simultaneously - I'm sure you know that.

Here is my reasoning for usage:
I take a screenshot, most of the time I immediately paste the image into my email to embed the image.
But about half the time I need the file path instead and I usually need to paste it into a file-browser dialogue.
If both formats were on the clipboard, the file-browse dialogue would only accept the text anyway - so having the image data won't affect that - AND I wouldn't have to fetch the path manually.
For non text-only applications, the image data should get pasted.

It's an idea; I'm sure there are complications.  What do you think?

33

Living Room / Image attachment problems

« on: March 20, 2018, 09:34 PM »

I have tried three times to post a handful of images.  Once I accidentally attached a .psd file, another time a .tif, the last time one (or all) were too large.  Every time the editor undoes *all* of the attachments instead of just the offenders.  I've already spent 15 minutes.  I'll try again later, maybe.

34

Living Room / How to copy data from an M.2 SSD card with M-key configuration?

« on: February 24, 2018, 02:58 PM »

My laptop is dead and I want to copy the data from the hard drive - except that the hard drive is an M.2 SSD chip with M key configuration.

I can't even find an adapter to read it with.
The BEST I can come up with is a PCIE card to fit it into my computer - but I don't want that. I also found this one, which accomodates all three m.2 styles.
I'm looking for some external adapter or chip or something.

I have an external SATA bay, if I could find some way to hook it to that.

I did find this, but I'm kind of afraid to shop on this site, and it's out of stock anyway.

Any advice, anyone?  I'm rather stuck.

Ah, maybe this! It will take x2 m-key chips and has a 3.5" SATA interface!

35

General Software Discussion / Resource Scheduler

« on: January 09, 2018, 08:04 PM »

For some time now I have wanted to make a web-based application (in javascript - but I love jquery) whereby resources can be scheduled.
My premise is this:

Now, Ath has made a nifty bedroom-planner application (for scheduling bunkers, perhaps at a camp) which is similar, and I sort of unwittingly hijacked his NANY thread, so I am starting my own here.

Here is my premise.
(If you haven't read my profile, by the way, I am a Catholic Religious Brother, hence the nature of my premise)

We have here at our house 9 altars.
We have several priests stationed here, and often have visiting priests, and they all need to say Mass everyday.  It is my job to schedule them for a time and an altar.
Normally, a priest only says one Mass per day, but in some larger chapels they might say two.  I also have to schedule altar boys to serve for them.

Presently, I print out a big table and fill everything in by hand since it changes alot.  I used to do this in excel, but it is clumsy to cut and paste.

What I envision for the web application is this:
The user first enters in the names of all the priests so there is a list.
There are preset timeslots. Each Mass lasts about 45 minutes with preparation time.
The altar boys may serve at one time or another, so there needs to be a way to specify which times they are available (depends on their own schedules).

I want to be able to see a sort of layout of timeslots for each altar, and then drag and drop the name of the priest onto a time slot.  The same for the altar boys, but they need to somehow marked as available or not for a particular slot.  The idea is to drag and drop.  When a priest is placed into a slot, he is removed from the waiting list.  The server remains in the servers list if he is available for another time.

I would like to be able to change the calendar from day to week to month.
Also, it is a necessity that I be able to print the week chart so I can hang it in the Sacristy for everyone to see in the mornings when they say Mass, so they know where to go.

So far, I have found this resource calendar framework on github that can provide the calendar part. 

If anyone has any ideas, that would be great.

36

N.A.N.Y. 2018 / NANY 2018 Release: BaseImage

« on: December 11, 2017, 10:22 PM »

NANY 2018 Entry Information

Application Name	BaseImage
Version	1.0
Short Description	Small utility for easily creating base64 encoded images
Supported OSes	Windows 7
Web Page	Online Documentation
Download Link	Download Baseimage
System Requirements	Only works on Windows
Version History	Link to Version History
Author	Link to Author's Profile page on Stack Exchange

Description
This is a little gui to let you create base64 encoded images. You can drag-n-drop an image onto its window and then choose to either export to file or copy to the clipboard. You can copy just the base64 code, or an html img tag, or a full html page.

Features

• Generates base-64 encoded html img tags from a given image file
• Easy-to use, simple interface
• Drag-n-Drop
• Built-in demo
• Copy just the image tag or just the code
• Export to html file
• Export img tag to file
• Autonaming
• Use Custom HTML Template
• Tray Icon Support

Planned Features
Nothing yet.

Screenshots

Please visit the documentation page for more images

Usage
Installation
Just extract the zip file to a folder and run the exectuable.

Using the Application
Run baseimage.exe and select Run Demo from the Tools Menu.
Or, drag your own image onto the window and select Export html to file from the File Menu (html files normally open in your browser).  Then, in your browser, view source.

Uninstallation
Just exit the application and delete all the files.

Known Issues
No issues yet.

37

N.A.N.Y. 2017 / NANY 2017: Calculor - A Live, Handy, Dandy, Inline Calculator

« on: November 07, 2016, 10:18 PM »

NANY 2017 Entry Information

Application Name	Calculor
Version	1.9
Short Description	A powerful, easy-to-use calculator that delivers answers as you type.
Supported OSes	Tested on Windows 7
Web Page	Help Pages and Screenshots
Download Link	Download Calculor
System Requirements	Only works on Windows
Version History	A Link to the Version History
Author	Link to Author's Profile page on Stack Exchange

Description
I always wanted a calculator like this.  It has a tiny GUI and lots of features and is easy to use.  I like to see what I did to get the answer. 

Features

• Tiny GUI
• Easy-to-work-with, live calculation as you type
• Trigonometric and Algebraic Math Functions
• Hex to Decimal, Binary to Decimal (and vice-versa) functions
• Character to Ascii and Unicode (and vice-versa) functions
• Round Fractions, Convert Answers to Fraction
• Descriptive menus
• Global hotkey
• Recent Equations Menu
• Memorized Equations Menu
• Tray Functionality
• Complete Help File

Planned Features
What features are you planning to implement in the future?  Well, probably I'll fix bugs...
Right now the character-to-unicode-character feature doesn't work for most unicode characters...

Screenshots

Please visit the documentation page for more images.

Usage
Installation
How do you install and run the Application for the first time?  Well, you just extract it to a folder and run the exe file.

Using the Application
A brief description of how a user will use the Application. What tips does a user need to get going?  Just extract the files and run the exe.  The little Calculor window will appear and you simply enter your math.

Uninstallation
How does a user uninstall the Application? Just exit the application and delete all the files.

Known Issues
Are there any issues that users should know about?  If the formula you enter is too elaborate you may get some strange answers.  Hopefully I'll work these out over time.  Right now the character-to-unicode-character feature doesn't work for most unicode characters...  (This has to do with the way the scilexer.dll was compiled, and the fellow who helped me with this has flown the coop, so I don't know if I'll ever fix this or not; but I'd like to.)

38

General Software Discussion / Cortana for Windows 7

« on: July 26, 2016, 09:12 PM »

The idea of using my voice to tell my computer what to do has always intrigued me.

On Windows XP I found a program called "Responding Heads" - which could do a lot of things:  voice-to-text (dicatation), text-to-voice (talking), listen for commands, sendkeys, etc.  It had a little head on your screen whose face would move when it talked.  It also had an "activation phrase" which you could use to toggle whether it listens for commands or not.  Most of these kinds of programs only give you a key-command.

But it didn't work so well, even after you went through all the "training" to get it to recognize your voice better.
And it doesn't work on Windows 7.

However, I know there is DRAG-ON - but it's not free.
There's VoiceBot, too, by the makers of DisplayFusion.  It works pretty well, but there's no voice-switch for toggling listening mode, and there's no dictation function.

For Windows 10 there is Cortona.

So I'm wondering what is the best of these voice-applications for Windows 7?

I've found this one, called Braina, which claims to be like Cortona.  Has anyone tried it?  It even has a companion Android App to turn your Android into a microphone.
https://www.brainaso.../cortana-for-pc.html
https://play.google....om.brainasoft.braina

I've also found this, but have not tried it.
http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

Anyone else with ideas here?

39

Screenshot Captor / Capture Window does not capture open menu

« on: May 20, 2016, 10:22 AM »

So I'm making screenshots of a program I wrote so I can create documentation.
I want to document the menu commands.

So, with my program open, I open the File menu and push shift+printscreen, which is my command for capturing the window.
I also like my mouse captured.

But the result is my program's window with the mouse and the File menu in the pressed state - but no menu!

The only thing I can do is to use a custom capture and then use repeat region afterward.

So I think that "Capture Window" should capture menus, too.

40

Living Room / I need help shopping for mesh!

« on: March 29, 2016, 07:32 PM »

Hi, y'all!

Some time ago I posted here about a computer game called Fungus.

Well, now I'm trying to create a regular board game out of the idea.
Instead of "tetris-like" pieces I'm going to use tiles - you would roll the dice and get that many tiles to place on the board.
So I found these tiles which are around $10 for around 800 pieces - perfect!  They are only 8mm square (that's about 5/16" - just under 3/8"), so they won't take up too much space on the board.
I'm thinking of a 30x30 grid.

But here's where I need help.
When I lay out the pieces on the board, I need some sort of grid to hold the tiles in place so they don't slide - you know, kind of like on the super-scrabble boards - or in Blokkus.

The tiles are 8mm, so the holds need to be big enough so the tiles can be easily placed and removed by hand from the grid.

Here is a very nice brass mesh that would be perfect if it had the right size holes!  Here is a steel one, again the wrong size.  This one is copper, but it is woven, which would make it more difficult to handle the tiles.

I'm going to make the gameboard out of oak or walnut (and carve little mushrooms on the borders), so a brass grid would look lovely.  But if it was just steel then I could always spray-paint it gold or brass.

I just need help finding the grid!  I've googled for grid, mesh, screen.

Can you all help me find a mesh that will work?

[update]
Okay, so I found this, which has 10mm holes, but it's a bit thick.

41

Screenshot Captor / Tray Contextmen appears offset

« on: January 02, 2016, 09:49 AM »

This has been happening to me for a long time now.

When I right-click on the tray icon to show the tray menu, the menu appears about 300 pixels to the right of where it's supposed to appear.  I have a right-aligned taskbar.

Is there a way to fix this without resetting everything to default?

42

Screenshot Captor / Interaction with ScreenClippings AHK Script

« on: January 02, 2016, 09:46 AM »

Recently I found an AHK script called ScreenClippings.

It has a feature where you can capture a portion of the screen and it becomes a floating panel.
This is very useful if you need to use the area as a reference.  Sometimes I do this in certain dialogue windows and then I use the information somewhere else.

Also, I like being able to capture an area by this scripts hotkey: hold win key and draw with the mouse.  To me this is a much better way than pushing a hotkey and then drawing.  The ahk script allows me to draw the box immediately and not have to wait for the crosshair lines to appear.  I just draw the box and the image is captured - it's so fast.

Maybe ScreenshotCaptor could do these things too?

Also, a weird thing happens.  When I use the script to capture an area (by holding win+ctrl and drawing a box) then ScreenshotCaptor thinks I'm trying to capture a particular object (SC's hotkey is alt+printscreen), but I haven't pushed either alt or the printscreen key!  Weird!

43

N.A.N.Y. 2016 / NANY 2016: Iconus - a Handy Dandy Quickie Icon Viewer

« on: December 20, 2015, 11:11 AM »

NANY 2016 Entry Information

Application Name	Iconus
Version	1.0
Short Description	Handy Dandy Quickie Icon Viewer
Supported OSes	Windows 7 (probably works on most Windows versions, but untested)
Web Page	BGM's Goodies Page
	Online Help File
Download Link	Download zip file
System Requirements	About 3 Megabytes of space for all the files
Version History	December 21, 2015 - First Release; version 1.0
Author	Link to Author's Profile page on Stack Exchange

Description
Being a coder/programmer I often need to view the icons inside of a dll or an icl file.  I have tried all sorts of icon viewers and there are a lot of them, but none of them did everything that I wanted, or else I found them klunky in one way or another.  So, in the end I built my own which works exactly the way I want it to.

What I wanted most of all was to complement my particular workflow:

• Quickly open a library (either by drag-n-drop or commandline)
• Quickly fetch an icon's position
• Quickly extract an icon if I want it

Features

• Designed to be Quick and Easy
• View icons at 16x16 or 32x32
• Easily and quickly switch between libraries
• Common Libs menu:  Keep a library of often used icon libraries
• History List: Keep history of viewed libraries
• Open the library in your favourite icon library editor
• Open icon libraries in Iconus via commandline, drag-n-drop, file-browse
• Get detailed information on each icon in the library
• Easily extract any icon in the library
• Easily fetch the icon's ID

Planned Features

• Option to associate file types
• Update the help file with commandline info  (I forgot)

Screenshots



Usage
Installation
To install Iconus, simply extract the contents of the zip file to any folder.

Using the Application
Designed for the sake of the ease-of-use in fetching an icon's index from .exe, .dll, .icl, .ico files.
You can open files via drag-n-drop, commandline, or file-browse.

Uninstallation
How does a user uninstall the Application?  Just delete the files.

Known Issues
The History List can be a little quirky; it still needs a little work to tune up, but it works for the most part.

44

General Software Discussion / DIY Control4

« on: October 31, 2015, 08:25 AM »

Anybody here have a Control4 Home Controller System?  It uses windows software called Composer to manage the system.  Normally you need a "dealer" who sells you a system and sets it up for you, and once you're in, you have to call them every time you want something added/changed.  Well, my dealer was quickly unreliable and so I decided to figure out a way to get control of my own system.

I'm interested to hear if anyone else is in the same situation.

45

Screenshot Captor / ShareX link in Options > Tools is defunct

« on: June 25, 2015, 03:57 PM »

If you go to Preferences > Tools > Online Uploading
and click the Visit ShareX Site to Download button
You go to a page pointing you to another page.

In other words, we need to update the link from
http://code.google.c...moved?project=sharex
to
https://getsharex.com/

46

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / PixCalc - a handy pixel-to-inches/centimeters calculator

« on: June 20, 2015, 09:18 AM »

Hello, all!

Here's a little program that would have been better for the NANY.
I made it for myself, but I like to share (for free), so here it is!

It is a handy dandy calculator for converting pixels to inches or centimeters and vice-versa. You set the dpi, height, width of your image and it will give you immediate results and automatically copy them to your clipboard. You can also drag-n-drop images onto PixCalc and it will read the dimensions and dpi for you.

It comes with a chm help file.



Download link

47

Living Room / How to use a pantograph for duplication?

« on: February 16, 2015, 04:24 PM »

There are lots of demos and directions for using a pantograph, but they nearly all show you how to *enlarge* an image.  Following those directions I can build a pantograph just fine.

But how do you use a pantograph to just duplicate an image without enlarging it?

What I want to know is, where do you put the anchor and tracer and pencil?

48

General Software Discussion / Firefox won't play videos unless I keep moving the mouse! Ugh!

« on: February 05, 2015, 08:49 AM »

On my computer (and another one, actually) I have this problem with video playback (youtube, vimeo) in Firefox where the videos will hang unless I move the mouse around whilst it plays.  I've tried everything imaginable to solve this and all to no avail.  (Windows 7 Pro x64 with Firefox 30+)

Has anyone else had this happen to them?
How do I fix it?

49

General Software Discussion / Free Simple RSS Editor

« on: February 02, 2015, 11:04 PM »

Oh, I am in need of a simple RSS editor - something to easily edit the xml for a regular old rss feed.
I just want to edit it locally or via a UNC share.

I've tried a few free rss editors and they are all so klunky or they don't work right, and *none* of them allow you to just drag-n-drop the file.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
So far I've tried:

• RSSBuilder
• RSSme
• Easy Feed Editor

Maybe I should just make my own in autohotkey.  Shouldn't be too hard - its just that I don't have any time to do it!

50

Screenshot Captor / Single Left-Click to Open Editor

« on: January 01, 2015, 11:58 AM »

I am dreaming of being able to single-left click on the tray icon to open the editor (with my last capture).  Right now I have to double-click, and I have to remember that it works that way.  Single-click doesn't do anything.

In Options > The Basics > Hotkeys and Shortcuts, there is a setting for setting single-click on tray icon to CAPTURE.  But I have it set to not assigned because I don't want to capture on tray-icon click.

Okay, so I'm finicky.

Feature Request:  Option to assign what single-click on tray icon does - with setting for "open editor".