Messages

626

Developer's Corner / Re: Style guidelines for how to structure helpfiles?

« on: July 08, 2010, 07:41 AM »

http://www.remembert...m/services/smartadd/

-Paul Keith (July 07, 2010, 06:35 PM)

is a really good example of the italicized part below.

Generally I would think the important part is to narrow down the search and the actual guide. Everything else is secondary even the structure although that is where having your program be able to support the help in it's structure rather than having a separate section helps.
[italics mine]

Gives me too many ideas of how to improve what was supposed to be a quick and dirty script

EDIT: That is, it's not only a good example of documentation, it's a good example of having interface hints pop up helpfully but uninstrusively so that you don't need to go to the documentation.

627

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR problem with .NET 4.0

« on: July 08, 2010, 06:08 AM »

I had to remove that plugin too, I have .NET 4 but I can't remember if I had problems with it before or not.

628

Developer's Corner / Re: Style guidelines for how to structure helpfiles?

« on: July 08, 2010, 05:56 AM »

I'm not really sure why you see that as "not the best thing to do" as the only way I could see it being better is if the dialog itself was inside the search box to make it even more minimal. (I'm mostly referring to web services though)

-Paul Keith (July 07, 2010, 06:35 PM)

Well, it's bad enough that a program is counterintuitive enough to require going to the help file, now I'm telling people the interface is so horrible they have to watch a movie to figure out how to use it. And with a help file ideally they can hopefully glance at it and get on with their work. You can't skim a video. In that way it is respectful of the user's time. That was my thinking, but I know not everyone thinks the same way, that's why I was asking.

I did have in mind to do a screencast, but mainly for the benefit for those trying to figure out what it is and whether it was worth downloading. And some how-to screencasts as well, but not as  a replacement for the help file.

629

Developer's Corner / Re: Style guidelines for how to structure helpfiles?

« on: July 07, 2010, 07:35 PM »

Thanks for the very specific suggestions! Much appreciated.

630

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: TaskDaddy (and a question for any potential users)

« on: July 07, 2010, 04:54 PM »

Thinking about what killer feature does TaskDaddy need that it currently is missing..you may see a poll soon. Any other nominees?

Missing features...
- support recurring tasks
- support more built-in task fields
- support custom task fields
- support merging a command line with tasks from a file, e.g., taskdaddy "@@Errand Buy _ from Wal-mart" -f groceries.txt
- support for Thunderbird Lightning
- a companion program CalendarDaddy
- a pop-up notification confirming the task has been added to Outlook
- ability to customize reminder time
- ability to mark a task as complete
- support user friendly dates such as #tomorrow or #+3 (for three days from now)
- support spaces in categories

631

Developer's Corner / Re: Style guidelines for how to structure helpfiles?

« on: July 07, 2010, 04:41 PM »

There may be some things that specifically in need of a help file but generally you want a screencast or a demo page.

-Paul Keith (July 07, 2010, 04:35 PM)

Interesting thought. As someone who is a user 99% of the time, I will tend to watch a screencast as a last resort if the helpfile is absolute crap.

EDIT: In fact, the way TaskDaddy evolved, the program that was the inspiration for it had some help text on the dialog itself, but when I tried to do that, it seemed like an intimidating amount of information, so I put a blurb saying to press F1 to view the helpfile and also a help file icon. (see the screenshot by clicking the TaskDaddy link in my signature.) Probably not the best thing to do, but it was all I could think of at the time.

I think your best bet though is to narrow down the purpose of your program and then do a search for similar programs that are popular in Delicious and then compare their help file lay-outs with your own.

I think I'm coming to this conclusion as well.

632

Developer's Corner / Style guidelines for how to structure helpfiles?

« on: July 07, 2010, 03:03 PM »

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions, pointers, or good examples of best practices for organizing a help file. My Google fu fails me...

EDIT: Did find this from searching delicious:
http://www.uxmatters...erative-approach.php

633

Developer's Corner / Re: Code::Blocks 10.05 has been out...

« on: July 07, 2010, 02:53 PM »

I should also say, I got a message that the code snippets addin (codesnippets.dll IIRC) wasn't compatible and got disabled. Although there's a different code snippet thing built in or well integrated. No problems with any other add-in that I've seen.

634

Post New Requests Here / Re: Idea - Return *new* lines from a text file (w/ example)

« on: July 07, 2010, 12:18 PM »

I cant copy the files. The log files being read can sometimes be well over 10mb so a copy based solutions isnt pratical.

-strictlyfocused02 (July 07, 2010, 11:54 AM)

That makes sense. That source code you posted is way over my head and someone else will need to chime in , but is the gist of it that the function monitors the file size, so that if it was n bytes and now it is n + 1000 bytes, return the last 1000 bytes as lines?

635

Post New Requests Here / Re: Idea - Return *new* lines from a text file (w/ example)

« on: July 07, 2010, 11:46 AM »

Not sure if you want to do it this way (in fact I'm pretty sure you don't), but it looks like it can be done from a batch file:

if not exist file.txt exit
fc oldfile.txt file.txt | find /v "*****"
copy file.txt oldfile.txt
pause

636

Living Room / Re: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

« on: July 07, 2010, 10:59 AM »

Junior Staffer:

ok here's a bit more smart analysis about it

http://www.huffingto...-the-i_b_626754.html

-iphigenie (July 07, 2010, 02:04 AM)

I appreciate this, but I think it's still a go for my movie 'based on a true story"*:


Obama: We're under cyberattack! I need you to press the red button that  goes to the internet kill switch.
Junior Staffer:: Wow, so isn't that like a Denial of Service attack itself?
Obama: Shut up and press the red button.
Junior Staffer: Ok, Ok, calm down. What's the launch password?
Obama: N-O-I-P-4-Y-O-U
Junior Staffer: Thanks. OK, here goes the mother of all cyberattacks, I mean our counter-mother-cyberattack-whatever. Oh crap!
Obama: Not sure I like the sound of that.
Junior Staffer: I think I accidentally nuked Russia.

* based loosely, that is.

637

Post New Requests Here / Re: Idea - Return *new* lines from a text file (w/ example)

« on: July 07, 2010, 09:54 AM »

Point of clarification: Are the new lines guaranteed to be at the end of the file?

638

Finished Programs / Re: Context Menu Select Folder

« on: July 05, 2010, 07:58 AM »

Don't know if this helps or not but I'll throw it out there:

Explorer [/n] [/e] [(,)/root,<object>] [/select,<object>]

/n                Opens a new single-pane window for the default
                  selection. This is usually the root of the drive Windows
                   is installed on. If the window is already open, a
                  duplicate opens.

/e                Opens Windows Explorer in its default view.

/root,<object>    Opens a window view of the specified object.


/select,<object>  Opens a window view with the specified folder, file or
                  application selected.

If I get time, I'll see if I get this to show up as a context menu using registry edits. Probably a long shot, but I'll see what I can do.

EDIT: Well I puttered around, in theory you could put a command line here (I did this at lnkfile (.lnk shortcut) level because that seems to be the level at which "Open file location" appears):

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\shell\Open &parent of file location\command

So this appears on the menu for shortcuts but I don't know what argument to use for the explorer command line. Problem is I don't know how translate from the .lnk path (which would be assigned to %1 in the command) to the actual target. If I could get that, then string manipulation to get the folder, then add appending \.. to the folder path would probably get me the parent directory.

So I didn't get anywhere but I thought I would report my findings.

639

General Software Discussion / Re: is there an ultimate file extension manager (to work with windows 7, at least).

« on: July 03, 2010, 06:44 AM »

It is recommended you also install functions for keyconfig extension, this gives you a GUI for keyconfig.

-daddydave (June 22, 2010, 07:12 AM)

I was wrong. As nudone undoubtedly figured out, the GUI comes from keyconfig itself. Functions for keyconfig merely provides, well, functions for keyconfig.

640

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: VPR, visual people randomizer!

« on: July 02, 2010, 03:17 PM »

May be opening a can of worms here, but if you don't use the screen at that time for anything else (like showing a question to the class, for example), maybe you could take the kid's picture and have it rotate through the pictures?  The program logic would be the same, just the data would show up differently (like flipping through a photo album at high speed looping through and stopping at a random picture).  Just a thought if you are making it "visual".

-steeladept (July 02, 2010, 10:26 AM)

When I first heard about this snack, I thought about something like this.

(Mockup in previous post)

-scancode (July 02, 2010, 12:40 PM)

I thought of something similar except I pictured a wall of photos and there is a red LED over the nose of each student that flashes when it's their turn, like in "Wallace and Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" when they get an incoming call.

641

C / C++ / Re: C++ Programming Resources

« on: July 01, 2010, 03:42 PM »

Some of the C++ links here have been mentioned before, some haven't. Just cleaned up the dead links.
delicious.com/daddydave/c++

EDIT: Later realized I had some more links tagged stl but not c++, cleaned those up and tagged with c++ so they show up in the list too.

642

General Software Discussion / Entering Windows 7 password after machine it is idle annoyance

« on: July 01, 2010, 02:16 PM »

This is starting to drive me nuts, I noticed this in the Windows 7 RC, and it still happens in Windows 7 OEM version for me (different motherboard IIRC), I am curious as to whether it happens to anyone else. When I return to my PC after leaving it idle, I go to it, press Ctrl-Alt-Del, type in my password and get in. This works about half the time. The other half, I find myself picking up the mouse after entering Ctrl-Alt-Del because the Password field is not selected, selecting the field with the mouse and then putting it in. I know I can Tab but why should I have to. Could this be a software/driver conflict?

643

Finished Programs / Re: Context Menu Select Folder

« on: June 30, 2010, 10:44 AM »

It took me a while to realize what you were saying, but I think you are saying you would like a context menu item with a concept such as "Open Parent Folder of File Location with File Location Selected" (wording needs work) in addition to the standard "Open File Location"?

I believe locate32 propagates the Windows Explorer context menu to itself -- great program!

644

Developer's Corner / Re: Code::Blocks 10.05 has been out...

« on: June 29, 2010, 09:41 PM »

I decided to use Code::Blocks for Mouser's C++ programming school.  It loads much quicker than Visual C++ Express and the plug-in system is very nicely implemented. I installed it right on top of version 8 and it didn't cause any problems.

645

Find And Run Robot / Break/Pause 1, Break/Pause 2, Break/Pause 3

« on: June 29, 2010, 09:32 PM »

Why are there 3 different versions of Pause/Break in the hotkey dropdown? Are they for different types of keyboards?

646

Find And Run Robot / Re: What hotkey(s) do *you* use to trigger FARR?

« on: June 29, 2010, 09:27 PM »

I really need to add some text somewhere saying to right click to add -- i'll bet most people don't realize they can add their own.

-mouser (June 29, 2010, 09:18 PM)

I'm curious as to why "some options are not changeable" -- is there a way to make it so that they are changeable from here, and save people from Delete/Add?

647

Find And Run Robot / Re: What hotkey(s) do *you* use to trigger FARR?

« on: June 29, 2010, 08:44 PM »

@thancock20: Nice!

This may be off topic, but for a long time I thought you couldn't change the hotkey because of the red text and disabled items in this dialog:


Sounded pretty definitive to me, so I just accepted that my only options were to check or uncheck the boxes on that dialog.
It was much later that I happened to right click and found the Add New Entry menu item.

648

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha Release!

« on: June 28, 2010, 05:13 AM »

Contrary to what I said in the Known Issues above, TaskDaddy handles double quotes within a task name fine. From the GUI (input box) mode, there's no issue at all. The only time there's an issue is when you want to put the task on the command line, something you might do if you are creating a shortcut to create a specific task, or if you are creating a task from a batch file. The syntax in that case is somewhat tricky. You can't just say

[Select]

TaskDaddy.exe @Parrot Say "Polly wants a cracker"

because all the double quotes do in that case is make "Polly wants a cracker" a single parameter, which means TaskDaddy never sees the double quotes. You won't see quotes in the task, it is as if you said TaskDaddy.exe @Parrot Say Polly wants a cracker. Instead put all parameters except for options such as /p inside quotes, and inside those double quotes, use double double quotes like this:

[Select]

TaskDaddy.exe "@Parrot Say ""Polly wants a cracker"""

The version using /p looks like this:

[Select]

TaskDaddy.exe "@Parrot Say ""Polly wants a cracker""" /p

649

Site/Forum Features / Re: Should we add tags to forum?

« on: June 27, 2010, 07:25 PM »

Well, I thought of a possible use case for tags in a forum. Be patient, I have to set it up.

Say there's a forum that rules with an iron hand. Everytime someone asks a topic that has already been asked, they are tersely told to search the forums. Problem is, the person posts the topic because they already did a search of the forums, and all they could find were these terse responses saying to search the forums.

Suppose further the search engine can be tweaked so that if a thread is tagged with a certain tag, it gets the bottom priority in search results or is ignored completely. These "search the forum" threads could be tagged by the admin for that purpose, so that the n00b could actually find what he is looking for by searching the forums.

This case doesn't seem to apply to the people-friendly and search-friendly DonationCoder forum, but I wanted to give an idea of when it might be useful.

650

Developer's Corner / Re: Code::Blocks 10.05 has been out...

« on: June 27, 2010, 11:25 AM »

You sure have to stay on topic on those Code::Blocks forums though! Even though it uses the wxWidgets library, I've noticed in some threads (can't find them now, they weren't mine) that if a newcomer politely asks for assistance getting wxWidgets applications to compile within Code::Blocks, they immediately get shot down by mods, unless another forum member (perhaps an "advanced newcomer") happens to have the answer (and the answer is usually something like "You have to check off all the libraries in the wizard"). I don't know if it happens a lot, but these are the threads I find in search when I am looking for a solution to a similar problem. Anyway, I have Code::Blocks installed right now, it compiles stuff fine, it's very impressive, but I'm not doing anything with it currently. The problem with C++, which is probably the best language out there for writing real programs*, is that you have to think too hard about the BEST way to do it..queue, array, or stack..use a design pattern or just wing it..whereas in AutoIt3 usually there is one way to do it, or there is one standard UDF out there and you use that. Speaking of off topic!

*Disclaimer: this is just a hobby for me, so don't take what I say about programming too seriously.