Messages

101

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.82 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - APRIL 26, 2007

« on: May 06, 2007, 06:43 PM »

Another bug... I think. I have a "Favorite Shortcuts" folder on my desktop. It is high on my FARR search folder list. In this folder I have a shortcut to Control Panel's Add-Remove Programs. If I open this shortcut from the folder in explorer directly (not using FARR) the A-R-P window opens fine. But if I invoke it from FARR, it locates the correct shortcut (I see the path to the Favorite Shortcuts folder), but when I select this shortcut, the A-R-P window does not open. In the past (with FARR 1), this worked as intended. I don't think it's ever worked with FARR 2, but I'm not certain.

102

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.82 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - APRIL 26, 2007

« on: May 03, 2007, 11:38 AM »

Sounds like a good plan. A recursion depth limit would not usually be needed, but I can think of some places where it would be useful.

103

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.82 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - APRIL 26, 2007

« on: May 03, 2007, 11:04 AM »

Doesn't seem to work. If I don't include the wildcard, it doesn't exclude the files.

But wouldn't it be more consistent to have directory exclusions on the same page as directory inclusions, rather than on the page with pattern scoring?

104

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.82 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - APRIL 26, 2007

« on: May 03, 2007, 09:26 AM »

Thanks, mouser. Actually shouldn't it be d:\winnt\temp\*  ?

But it isn't only that I didn't want those results to show up - I don't even want FARR to waste time searching the temp folder and its subfolders. Or is it smart enough to do that when it sees the above pattern exclusion?

105

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.82 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - APRIL 26, 2007

« on: May 03, 2007, 06:30 AM »

Hmmm, am I doing this wrong or is this an issue? I just entered a search word. Most of the results were in D:\WINNT\TEMP, which I did not want. D:\WINNT\ is on my search path, but I didn't want its TEMP subfolder to be. So I added D:\WINNT\TEMP\ to Search Folders with a score of -9999. Made no difference whatsoever, whether I put it before or after the D:\WINNT\ entry.

106

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.82 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - APRIL 26, 2007

« on: May 02, 2007, 09:20 AM »

Mouser, this may not be an issue for new users, perhaps just for folks converting up from previous versions, but I encountered a small issue with the sizing of the Edit Group/Alias dialog. Presumably its size on my system had been remembered (from a previous FARR version with fewer fields in the dialog) as shorter than is now permitted. As a result, the dialog was shown at the current minimum height, but the Results field contents were completely invisible, and completely unscrollable. The only indicator that there was anything in the Results field was that I could do Select All / Copy, then paste to an editor to view the field contents. When I resized the dialog up and then back down to minimum height, the problem did not  recur.

Several thoughts:
* seems like there is some subtle size dependency failure when the dialog height is memorized as being smaller than the current minimum height.
* Perhaps it would help if the dialog minimum height were a little taller than now so that the Results field was always at least 2 lines high. (This might also help with clarity, emphasizing to the user that this is a multi-line field, and unless you are planning a cell phone version, shouldn't be a problem with anyone's screen size.)
* It would help with clarity if there were an explicit resizing grip at the lower right corner.

Thanks!

107

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.59 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - MARCH 14, 2007

« on: March 13, 2007, 10:24 PM »

Looks shipshape to me, mouser, thanks!!

108

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.58 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - MARCH 13, 2007

« on: March 13, 2007, 02:50 PM »

This fix is listed but the bug actually seems unchanged:
  "Fixed bug where first word was being ignored when search in a directory. "

(note that this bug is only relevant to when the "check full path for search words" option is checked.)

109

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.58 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - MARCH 13, 2007

« on: March 13, 2007, 02:36 PM »

Thank you, mouser! Wonderful program, but I think still some issues...

Simple aliases are still not working as expected. When I type the period, FARR shows my aliases which begin with a period, but as soon as I type the next character (e.g. "w" for the ".weather" alias), no aliases are displayed. OTOH if I type "..w" it finds alias ".weather". Is this a change (maybe related to regex support) or a bug, or the way it always was?

110

General Software Discussion / Re: Firewalls - please, i can't be bothered.

« on: March 11, 2007, 03:21 PM »

Under Win2K: Comodo Firewall Pro (with NOD32), clean, resource-light, all well.

111

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.56 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - February 25, 2007

« on: March 06, 2007, 09:43 AM »

Just 2 weeks to do all that??? It took me 3 months to move across the street!

112

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.56 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - February 25, 2007

« on: March 05, 2007, 03:14 PM »

perhaps mouser is having some unexpected adventures in VistaLand....

113

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.56 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - February 25, 2007

« on: March 03, 2007, 10:53 AM »

Mouser... I think another bug. I don't use aliases that much (yet), and only updated to 2.00.56 last week after a month without updates, so I can't tell you when this bug emerged.

I start my aliases with a period "." and they always used to work fine.

But just now I typed:
 .w
intending to invoke my alias
 .weather
instead FARR brought up the same choices as happens if I just type
 w

Looking forward to a fix, also the fix for FARR's ignoring the first word of a multi-word entry as I reported last week.

Thank you!!

114

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.55 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - February 23, 2007

« on: February 23, 2007, 11:30 AM »

mouser, sorry I've been out of the loop for the past 6 weeks, so this is my first update since early January. The new alpha has a nice clean look, except that FWIW, I do not like Fade-in, and disabled it immediately. (To me, Fade-in works for an informational popup, but as a response to my urgent summons, it is just a bad excuse for tardiness! Of course YMMV.)

One issue: when "check full path for multi-word even without \" is enabled, and there are multiple words in the search input field, the first word seems to be ignored. The fact that nobody has spotted this may indicate that this is not a very popular option, but I appreciate it!!

Thanks!

115

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.23 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - January 12, 2007

« on: January 12, 2007, 04:33 PM »

Yes, I can see how this could get tricky, not obvious the best way to implement it. But here goes:

I want to be able to type this:
rox creat
and reach this:
D:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Roxio Easy Media Creator 8\Data\Creator Classic.lnk

I would think that the more words were actually in the filename (as opposed to the path) the higher the score would be. So the above file, which contains "creat" (though not "rox") would rank higher than this one:
D:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Roxio Easy Media Creator 8\Home.lnk
where both words are in the path, not in the filename.

Can this be nailed down? I realize that I am probably missing other sources of ambiguity.

Also, I do see that typing
\rox\ creat
does the job. So maybe I'm just really, really lazy! (But of course I am... that's why I love FARR so much )

Thanks again! Whatever you decide about this will work for me. Just trying to report on the user experience.

116

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.23 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - January 12, 2007

« on: January 12, 2007, 01:10 PM »

Thanks, Mouser -- you have really been burning up your coding keyboard!

The new improvements in multi-word searches now reveal a difference in expectations. I expect a multi-word search to look in both the filename and its path. Why? because it's too common for some self-centered programs to install themselves so that the company or program name is only in a folder name, and then the actual shortcut name only contains a particular function, like "Audio" or "Update" or "Uninstall". So I would hope to use a multi-word search including both the company/program and the function.

Maybe multi-word searches are not the best way to address this, but that has been the use that I have most been looking forward to. And this is not how the new version works. Can't say for sure about previous version in retrospect.

117

Find And Run Robot / Re: some weired results

« on: January 09, 2007, 09:20 AM »

masu: you can uncheck/disable any aliases that you don't want, or rename them (and tweak their regex pattern) to start with a period so they are still available but less likely to pop up unexpectedly.

118

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.02.01 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - January 7, 2007

« on: January 09, 2007, 09:17 AM »

> Size, Delete

Both of these questions, as well as some earlier ones, are basically asking for FARR to incrementally take on more and more of the role of a file explorer/browser. While this is a very tempting idea, I don't think that such features should be added on piecemeal. What about showing/changing the file timestamp? Showing/changing attributes? What about rename? Bulk rename? What about copy/move? Hmm, so what about showing both source & target panes? What about drilling down into zip/archive files?

BUT... there already are some superb 3rd party file explorers (Total Comander for me), and mouser still has on his plate, almost untouched, a whole pile of strategic questions to address for FARR 3 that directly relate to FARR's central job of being a launcher on steroids.

119

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.02.01 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - January 7, 2007

« on: January 07, 2007, 11:36 PM »

Here's a screen shot clip showing the apparent inconsistent treatment of the second word in the path.
Edit: never mind, the difference was due to other applicable scoring rules, not to differing treatment of the path. My bad.

120

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.02.01 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - January 7, 2007

« on: January 07, 2007, 10:04 PM »

Mouser, I think it would be helpful (at least in the help file if not here) to say something about how non-contiguous search words (multiword search) are implemented.

What it looks like to me, from initial testing, is that when multiple words are typed, the first word is required text, as before, but that if subsequent words are not present then there is a big scoring penalty. It's not clear to me how path matching works; some paths that include the second word seem to get a boost, but others not.

FWIW (which may not be much!) what I would have expected intuitively is that all the specified words be equivalent in importance... via either boolean AND or OR. If they are not treated the same, then it's harder to figure out what's happening.

121

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.08 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - January 4, 2007

« on: January 07, 2007, 01:25 PM »

Or how about a "sticky" (between invocations) checkbox/hotkey right on the main input window which would toggle the display between "Launch History selection/order" and "scored selection/order"?

This could be useful not only when the input line is blank, but even after the user starts to type.

122

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.08 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - January 4, 2007

« on: January 06, 2007, 07:12 PM »

jgpaiva: I'm running FARR 2.00.08.

mouser: No strong opinion. Hard to say, but I don't think I'd turn this option off. But let's see, suppose I wanted to run a program, which I knew I use pretty often, but I was simply blanking on its name (happens more than I would like!) Then this option might be useful. But one does want to avoid a confusing surfeit of options.

123

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.08 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - January 4, 2007

« on: January 06, 2007, 03:56 PM »

Mouser, I *mostly* like the new ranking method. But what I don't like is that a blank search no longer shows launch history in Most-recently-used order.

When I first press the FARR hot key, I want the most recently accessed program at the top, and so on down the list, the way it used to be (because I'll tend to run things in clumps.)

But when I start to type, then I'm looking for something that did not run very recently (or I would have just picked it from the afore-mentioned MRU list.) So then I want scoring to come into play.

Make any sense?

Thanks!

124

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.07 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - December 23, 2006

« on: January 01, 2007, 11:02 PM »

Hi mouser, it seems to me that the current new path search syntax might still be a bit arbitrary, more of a proof of concept than a tuned final product. When one syntactical element, like (apparently?) the forward backward slash here, is heavily overloaded wtih multiple meanings, there is a big risk of the kind of confusion that we see in the last few posts... and I think probably cause for big confusion on the part of users not so accustomed to syntactic precision as many of the testers here.

I have no real right to speak about this because I'm not yet offering a concrete suggestion, but that's my impression.

(January 2, 2007 corrected "forward slash" to "backward slash"... I would claim eggnog overdose but it wouldn't be true. Must just be fried brains.)

125

General Software Discussion / Re: MX Skype Recorder

« on: December 28, 2006, 08:56 AM »

Right, different emphasis. I have no particular interest in recording skype conversations (and anyway, isn't that illegal in many places unless you obtain the prior consent of the other party?), but I do want the voicemail management that PM offers. PM's free version actually met my needs; I just upgraded to Pro to support the developer.

BTW, FWIW, I just learned that the PM online forum is mostly unavailable in recent days because of broken undersea cables from the recent earthquake near Taiwan.