Messages

176

General Software Discussion / Shortcut to All Apps displayed by letter Alphabet

« on: February 21, 2016, 12:49 PM »

I have seen several threads where people want to remove this feature but in my case it is actually easier to use than scrolling down through 10 to 20 pages of programs listed by letter to get to "X" for "Xcopy+" for example. Is there a way to make a desktop shortcut one-click to access the All-Apps alphabetic 'list-by-letter' menu? If I could, i would make that my default Display option when clicking All Apps in the Start Menu.

177

General Software Discussion / Use Checkboxes to select specific Sites in returns from a Google Search to save

« on: February 16, 2016, 12:50 AM »

This is a 'spin-off' of another way to achieve something that apparently cannot be done.  My original request was a way to add a linefeed or <cr> to anything I Pasted to any document text or otherwise.  Apparently there is no longer a clipbrd.exe and it doesn't seem possible to modify the Windows Paste to include that linefeed.

The effort was being made in order to create a more specific list of links from those returned in an initial Google Search.  If there was a way to "click" a check box on the ones that I think are promising and let me scan thru maybe 10 pages dong this, then save a list of ONLY the ones that were checked.  This would actually be an even better solution.

The end result would be exactly what I wanted and no need to tinker with "way down deep" in the guts of Windows to add that extra linefeed which was only needed so all my copy/pasted links did not run together.  The option to choose maybe 4 out of 10 returns on each of 10 pages would give me a quick "saveable list of 40 links that I think have a high probability of needing further reading. 
There likely is already a Google App for that but I would not know what to call it.  If anyone has a similar program that would do something like this, I generally only use Google as I can start out with several parameters such as time span and other that give me more of the relevant data than most other searches.

178

General Software Discussion / Re: Use batch script to merge 2 .png files into single png or other option

« on: February 12, 2016, 02:50 PM »

I probably wasn't clear enough.  I actually do make the png files (or have been) from the original text.  But the text comes in written in various formats ad i am creating titles for their webpage from it.
Once i get the text arranged properly that is exactly what i have been doing , Creating the pngs and this has been fine for several years.  A new "addition" to the office has decided he can't be bothered with clicking links to see what page they go to and it wold be too long to put the entire description in the hyperlink to a website.  He cannot figure it out from the first letter of each work.  As above www. "coasd.com" for "city of angels sanitation department".  He now wants me to create a text file from the already converted pngs that he can import into Excel.  So he can read what goes to which.

I was looking for a way to go back and do it after the fact by scripting rather than by hand.  Going  forward.. Yes, I wrote that into the "site-creation" scripts to save this info as text tags as well as the final png files. 

4wd's solution was perfect and it was lucky for me I had found that exact same utility and installed it on my server but had not yer tested because it looked pretty complicated.  I would like to report that it is a "fantastic" utility that I wish I had known about long ago.  I am sure that I will have plenty more uses for it.  I did not bother try the portable and went straight to the installed Q16 X64. a decision i hope won't come back to 'bite me'

But the convert.exe is now in my path and the command runs from anywhere.  As soon as i can work out all the settings to get exactly what i need it will be a perfect fit!   Thanks 4WD

PS:  I know i asked for an "end to end" combination (And it works great!) but do you know the correct command to STACK the images as well?

AGAIN! 

I hope you can also find me a VIM script or whatever it take to add the two <enter> at the end of each use of Paste so I end up with a double spaced list using only copy/paste to get there.

179

General Software Discussion / Re: Use batch script to merge 2 .png files into single png or other option

« on: February 11, 2016, 07:33 PM »

Neato!  I found that very program just this afternoon.  Downloaded and installed it but have not even looked to see if it would do the job.  I had just about reached that point of "not worth the effort" and because this is all part of an ongoing job, i moved the problem to the front instead of the end and wrote in the commands to create the text files from the original input instead of the other way around.  The "orders" all come in text but they want the output in png's for use on websites having the correct "artsy look".
Now they come along and want those same "words" converted back to be used in a list format.

Those that are already "done" are done.  I will just have to "undo" them (maybe 30 or so) but going forward, i started creating plaintext documents from the "orders" at the start before I use Photoshop or other art program to create the pngs.  Then i dont have to "un-artify" the text afterward.

I just thought it was an interesting idea and wondered if it could be done.  cat.png+mouse.png=dinner.png 
Any ideas on the other one?  I just PM'ed you an idea i had about making the list to use for input checks taking the output from dir /b.

180

General Software Discussion / Using the folder contents of a directory to auto fill an input window

« on: February 11, 2016, 03:32 PM »

This is a question i have often wondered if there is a proper way to manage.  Given that you have a folder with 20 or more sub-folders in it,each folder-name having no spaces:
When typing input into a query created using the "set /p" command is there a way to make the input field auto-fill the text to match the folder-names in the existing directory similar to how Outlook fills in the email address-field based on names in your contacts (or actually it now uses a special file for this purpose but the results are the same) . 
Each progressive key entered by the user would narrow down the displayed name until it either matched the name of a sub-folder that already existed or if not already there the script would proceed to ask "Create?  (Y)es  (N)o  with the default being NO.

181

General Software Discussion / Use batch script to merge 2 .png files into single png or other option

« on: February 11, 2016, 03:00 PM »

This is a little bit off my usual day-to-day dealing with documents. 
I need a way to take two .png files (each contains text but not text that would recognized by OCR software) and combine these end to end to make a single line. 
As an example. 
If "This.png" was a picture of the words "City of Angels".  And "That.png" which was a picture of the words "Sanitation Department".  I need 'add' them end to end to make "This+That.png" which would read "City of Angels Sanitation Department".  And then i need to shrink the results to a size no longer than would fit on an 8.5 wide sheet of paper.

I could, I would just extract the text from each .png to start with but nothing i have tried works consistently to read them. In the end, I may end up searching for each occurrence and just typing the lines of text by hand.  But finding a way to add two image files might come in handy for other things one day   and if scripted it could be plugged into a a larger script that i run on the same files daily

As a side question, I also considered using "echo" to get each png file into a pdf if that is possible.    I would also be more than willing to drop the effort if someone can tell me it is going to me nearly impossible to accomplish .

182

General Software Discussion / System resources monitor overload warning for Windows 10

« on: January 09, 2016, 12:01 AM »

If there is already a tool for this I would appreciate a link to it. 

I have a couple of people who can overload any system they are on.  No matter what system they use nor how much memory it has, they always end up with the same complaint:  System crashes and losing all the changes they have made to opened documents without saving them. 
I would like to find an app that creates a display in the taskbar showing how much of their system resources are in use and warn them before they reach a critical point.  Maybe something simple like a green bar which changes to red after reaching a critical point.  It may not help even then but worth a try. 

I have found a couple of utilities that will limit the number of tabs can be opened with a specific
browser but they will just open another browser if I limit that.  I have not found a way to limit the number of simultaneous documents that can be opened in Word, Excel etc.

All problems inevitably get  blamed on the hardware.  Never the "User" even when they are shown that they have so many things opened at once that Windows cannot install updates.

If there is such a "simple resources monitor" which could be set to plainly warn them they are over extending the capacity of their system to prevent a crash before it happens this is what I am looking for.  Something that monitors total available system resources and not just those used by a single application and that runs on Start-up with no user action required.

183

General Software Discussion / Re: One Key Popup for an Office phone directory

« on: December 18, 2015, 03:51 PM »

As I said, ATH, this is mostly my fault for not supplying you the original in a timely manner.  I am sure it  would have helped quite a lot.  It does still work in a DOS windows sort of and having the original coding would have given you a much needed guide.  I promise to take time over Christmas to dig through mu floppy disk collection both  5 1/4 and 3 1/2    I can find it somewhere.  After all, it was a Hot item in Windows 95!

184

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Automatically delete clips after pasting them

« on: December 03, 2015, 03:23 PM »

Hi Mouser.  Thanks for pointing me to this nifty app.  I reading the above requests, it made me realize that I probably should have added the "delete after pasting" request to my need for the double <cr>'s.

This would only be a problem if i accidentally missed the Ctrl+c (or Copy) command and hit the Ctrl+P (or Paste) twice in a row but i can see that happening too.
I cannot think of any time I would need the paste to stay current in the clipboard and as a matter of fact I had not an hour ago looked up the command to clear the clip[board and created a shortcut just to do that.  If of any use to anyone else:  >>      C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c "echo off | clip"
I just made a desktop shortcut for that very thing.  But I still have not found a way to add the two <cr> so i get automatic double-spaced pasting.
I thought i found a way to do it in your program but if so, i cannot get it to cooperate and work

185

General Software Discussion / set the default contents of clipboard to contain two <cr> or add them after load

« on: November 27, 2015, 02:53 PM »

The intent is to end up with something that when pasted would put the item copied to clipboard PLUS two carriage returns.  I can't think of a better way to state it.  It would enable me to quickly cut and paste a number of items from various places into list or other document with a "double spaced" separation of the items without having to remember to hit "enter-enter" after each paste.  Since this is my main use of cut and paste it would be a great tool to have.  There may be other ways to automate this that I am not seeing.

186

General Software Discussion / active extension filter for archive drive

« on: November 25, 2015, 01:02 AM »

In the office we have a system with a drive that is dedicated to archiving mostly Word Documents but also other specific data file types.  In theory, it should contain only data files but in fact, it contains everything from temp files to executable to just about every possible type that can be copied from one place to another.

There are, however, a multitude of file-types that are absolutely worthless to anyone in the context for which the use was originally envisioned.  Half the space and probably 50% of the files by filename are actually worthless and never used.  They only take up space and slow down searches.

From time to time, I have used "Everything.exe" (the Best File Search engine I have ever seen...<a small 'plug' to Voidtools.com for making it > to locate the *.tmp and *.exe etc. and delete them all.  But it takes quite a lot of time and I am never sure I have gotten out all the various files extensions that just waste space and never will be of use to anyone.

It occurred to me that it would be nice to have two tools for this.  One would be something like the program "Filesize" to create a graph showing how much space is used by each of the various file extensions.  But most useful would be a "filter by extension" that could be applied to any files copied to the drive to either filter out or allow in each file based on its extension.  I am inclined to think it best to "block by specific extension" because it would give more control over unnecessary files and not possibly block those that I am just not familiar with yet. 

This probably sounds a bit off the wall(and I am sure it is) but when a 4TB drive is half full of worthless files and only 2 TB of it is data anyone really needs to keep, it would save upgrading to another drive just to be able to store more worthless trash as well as slowing down searches for the specific files that are needed.

Most users just drag and drop entire folder groups in order to get just the documents contained in them.  There are far too many ways to get the "trash in with the treasure" and no easy way to prevent it from being stored there.

This was a "Way-Out-There" solution that I thought might actually exist somewhere.  A "file-by-extension-filter"   (like a firewall for filenames)
that could stop it from ever happening in the first place instead of trying to skim them all out after the fact.  And one to make a nice graphic chart showing usage by extension would give me a way to prove or disprove the need for such a filter in the first place.

If anyone has ever written such, i figure someone here would know about it!   

187

Official Announcements / Re: Forum Upgraded August 30, 2015 - Report issues here

« on: October 27, 2015, 04:06 PM »

Not sure about everything but i Love the ability to be able to "Go TO Topics I Posted In" as well as "Go To Topics I started".  I Really appreciate all theeffort you must have gone through to add any changes in something that you know from the start there is no way to please everyone. 
Keep up the good work!

188

N.A.N.Y. 2016 / Re: NANY 2016 Pledge - Popup Contactlist

« on: October 19, 2015, 06:01 PM »

OutlookAddressBookView v1.98
Copyright (c) 2012 - 2015 Nir Sofer
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yes, i agree, it (the above by NirSoft)  does sort of fit the bill but theirs is more oriented toward email than telephone.  It is also not as user friendly as I would like requireing rtoo muych scrolling but in a pinch it does work i agree.
The one I used to have was maybe 5 lines per entry.  The data file was on the local drive but the program to access it loaded into memory on boot.  Ctrl+P or some similar opened the program at the first alphabetic entry as in "A" or other symbols could get it ahead of "A".
But it was like:
Name:
Address:
Phone:
Alt Phone:
Email:
Notes:

Notes as well as the other lines only showed about 40 characters or so but allowed entry up ti the max for DOS at the time.  You had to scroll to get past the first 40 or so.
The Square Display Box was pretty much centered on the screen.  And clicking the proper line activated the proper item to use it.

Back then, Modems were connected to phone-lines ad clicking the phone number activate the dial-out feature on the modem
you could hear through the computer speaker and use a microphone or just pick up the phone to access the line that the call was made on.

Clicking the email opened the default ail program (usually Outlook Express back then)  and filled that name in the to: box

The street address did nothing.  On accessing any record you were automatically in edit mode if you wanted to change anything and pressing Ctrl+A or some such would allow adding a new3 entry to the data file.

It saved automatically when exited. 
That is about all I can remember about it other than after Windows XP it would no longer run.  It was more oriented toward a wat to quickly find someones phone number (which back then mattered

But is also allowed you to add in notes such things as Birthday, and other things of import to that entry.

I used to store all kinds of things in it because it was TSR and easy to SEARCH.  I guess the equivalent today would be something like Sticky Notes which I am not sure are even still used in windows 10.

I hope some of this helps if you decide to continue with the Quest

189

General Software Discussion / Re: one click shortcut to enable all default windows desktop icons

« on: October 19, 2015, 05:38 PM »

Alright 4wd.  I KNEW you would find them but i still dont know how you found them
I looked (I thought) through every key in the registry. 
As you mentioned it might not work on Windows 10 but I will find out.  I do know that a lot of the registry is not the same in 8.1 as 10 but don;t know why.
I have run some other registry edit for Windows that worked on 8.1 but failed on 10.
Hopefully this will do the magic.

190

General Software Discussion / Re: one click shortcut to enable all default windows desktop icons

« on: October 17, 2015, 07:13 PM »

thanks an I may have to with that.  In my job I have to reload systems all the time and the default now is a clean desktop,  Only the recycle bin was left.
It took me a while to figure out what they did with everything
The only ones I really need are the default 5 or 6 for what I have to do
The rest is up to the users.
For  while I thought MS had done away with My PC etc. but there are just no longer enabled by default.

The link I posted has a discussion abut it and I THINK what I am going to have to do is take a system, turn them all on, then save each registry entry that has to be changed to enable them

That I could put into a single script and just run it, one click.

Speaking of FENCES, though, that brings back another thing I have been looking for a way to do which is to "pin" an icon to a specific spot on the desktop and keep it there.  Just One Icon, not a "corral full".   But Fences must use something similar to do what they do with groups of icons

Hmm I just tried where the forum said but not there.  However, I did find a ton of stuff that might come in handy in a nearby key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
If anything THIS is where I will fin my icons but better yet, it seems to be the place for all kinds of things I would like to be able to preset.  Background. default fonts, etc.

191

General Software Discussion / one click shortcut to enable all default windows desktop icons

« on: October 17, 2015, 05:50 PM »

There has got to be an easier way.  I found references where others have looked for this here and there
    www.msfn.org/board/topic/53212-commandline-for-show-desktop-icons/
but no one has a reasonable solution.  If done as it should be, a right click on desktop choose personalize then desktop icons or in windows 10 under themes. 
The defaults now are ONLY for recycle bin.  I cant find a winkey-plus etc. or anything else short of writing a code to change registry values in Shell and supposedly this requires a reboot while dong it the "normal way" while it does take maybe 5 or so clicks and such you finally get there with no reboot.

Seems there would be some other app out there that can control this with less activity. 

192

General Software Discussion / Re: One Key Popup for an Office phone directory

« on: October 10, 2015, 03:28 PM »

Well, this sound just like the type of challenge I could use for NANY2016, would that be allright for you, or do you need it, like, 'yesterday'?
Planning would be to start sometime next week and have an alpha-version in a couple of days.

-Ath (October 10, 2015, 01:42 PM)

Go for it ATH.  All the stuff I get from DC is usually better than what I find by scrounging from Google.  The "time-boundary" setting for "past year" >  "/?&tbs=qdr:y" used to help but I lately I find that leaving out things from 2013 is not as helpful as it used to be and I have not found the Google boundary marker for past 2 years or past 3 years yet.
The original was a tiny TSR from Windows XP days, if I can find it somewhere I will send it to you.   

193

General Software Discussion / Re: Best REAL Program to use for AVCHD video format conversion

« on: October 10, 2015, 12:05 AM »

I also managed to DL yours Franstam but have not yet tried.
I can tell you that whoever wrote their webpage does a great job of seeming to be trying to convince you that "Theirs' is the Greatest" .. BUT ...
then they proceed to issue and even BIGGER WARNING about reading the EULA with your attorney present, a thing that always manages to rattle my nerves.
Do you know what they mean by that?   

194

General Software Discussion / Re: Best REAL Program to use for AVCHD video format conversion

« on: October 09, 2015, 11:59 PM »

VidCoder

http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/

Install, run, drop video on it, hit Encode.

-4wd (October 09, 2015, 10:53 PM)

  WORKS!  Thanks 4WD and has a boatload of options that i presume  are best left alone by neophytes such as myself?
I thought the conversion time was a bit long (took 36 mins to do a 3.2 GB file) but it id it with no errors and no questions asked and NO little hand poked out of the screen asking for $$ so I guess this is a really Free version?

195

General Software Discussion / Best REAL Program to use for AVCHD video format conversion

« on: October 09, 2015, 10:44 PM »

Not looking for a Freebie necessarily, I need something that works properly.  No one here is a Pro at making movies  These are just several hours of Family Home Movies where we used a new (at the time) Video recorder and the format AVCHD must be a One-off from a Sony/Panasonic marriage of minds.  Nothing wrong with the video quality that the camera took.  Colors and all are astounding for such a tiny gadget but AVCHD wont play on Windows at all apparently and I am trying to keep all our videos and Photos in a digital format for storage

I have to convert it to some format that can be stored on a Home Media center and watched whenever someone wants to without having to play it back back through the camera.  There is no lack of software that claims to work but most of it has weird descriptions of capabilities and they always want you to get the FREE version first, THEN upgrade to the paid.  I hate to spend hours getting one configured only to find out it does not perform well or is a pain to configure.

Anyone know of one that works well and can handle the AVCHD format?  I am mot much into editing, I just like to see it like it was but minor adjustments and at least the ability to merge separate sessions into a single play would be nice

196

General Software Discussion / One Key Popup for an Office phone directory

« on: October 09, 2015, 05:09 PM »

WOW!  I gotta learn Look before I leap.. 
 I found about a million apps....The key was to ask Google the question phrased in the exactly right way.
So if anyone has a favorite they can recommend, I now have everythign from links to Outlooks People lists that do not require opening Outlook to tiny programs that can remind you when someones birthday is near.  Plus (of course) their phone number

Thanks to DC for being a place someone can ask even "dumb" questions and still get polite responses and Help.

Except for anyone offering an opinion on a "Good One", I think everyone and their brother already wrote at least one.   

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Before I start trying to code some poor imitation to work with Notepad or a similar text program,  it occurred to me that surely there is one of these already out there.

A simple text document "Phone Book-like listing I can use for people in the Office (or I can see many good Personal Uses too now that Phone Directories are a thing of the past).  Back in he days of Windows 95 (I think) i used to have a fantastic one that ran as a "TSR:" app  back then but it has long since died as it would not run on X64 at all.  I don't even remember the name but i have missed it mightily!  The program would have to be one that loads in memory as I have to refer to it while doing all kinds of other things.  The Old program used to work like a charm if only i knew the name, Maybe someone picked up the pieces and brought it forward to the Windows 10 world.

Something where I can hit ALT+P or similar and have a simple text listing in alphabet order of names and phone numbers that another ALT+P would close.

In my case I only have to deal with maybe 50 names but each has a Home/Office/Cell/Fax/Ofc Extension# etc and it is tiring to have to look them all up on their email signatures or deal with the MS Office Contact program just to get a phone number every time it is needed.
The "paper sheet" hard-copy version tends to "migrate south". (ie: the Round File Area) or.. maybe migrates to other desks!
I would not complain if there was room for an email address on each person as well.

197

General Software Discussion / HOT-key utility (preferably free of course) compatible with Windows 10

« on: September 17, 2015, 05:33 PM »

I have one somewhere that i used on XP and win7 and maybe Win8 but I cannot remember the name of it
Best Hot-Key manger I ever used though I am sure there are better.  This one was written by someone in France i think.
Windows 10 has so many "presets" i am not sure if it would work here even if I find it.  A user in the office just want to be able to hit (example) ctrl + P and get the word "Products" or something similar to be typed for her on whatever she is doing..  And it has to be drop-dead-simple to use
and "No, she isn't blonde". 

> I don't think hair-color has anything to do with

198

General Software Discussion / Re: Must be too easy ? or Windows 10 does not like it

« on: September 17, 2015, 05:00 PM »

OMG wraith!  NO!  STOIC!n  what  the heck  all of ya!

I am LMAO!

You made my day today that was a very good eh...
tet-a-te or what you say?  Hmm Verbal Parrying

I need somethign to drink now. 

199

General Software Discussion / Must be too easy ? or Windows 10 does not like it

« on: September 15, 2015, 04:01 PM »

This is something that 4WD already wrote about a year ago and i have used it as needed on a Windows 7 system.  But i cannot get it to work for some reason on windows 10 with the same requirements.

It should be as simple as a one liner  (or maybe 2)

In a given directory there are sub-folders named "A" to "Z".  In this same directory many people just dump their files without alphabetically filing them. 
This little batch script just went through the loose files in the folder, extracted the first letter of any file it found and moved that file to the correct folder based on its first letter.

So "C:\Lots-Of-Files\Smith, Adam.txt" would get moved into "C:\Lots-Of-Files\S\Smith, Adam.txt" with the overwrite switch to ON and no permission asking.
the "A"to "Z" sub folders are already there and in that same directory.  It would be preferable to just set the variables to be run from the local directory
(of course the ends up moving the bat file too but that is OK, i name it "ZZfiler.bat" so I know where to go get it next time i need it

anyway, 4WD's solution was a little more complex as it would even create the alphabetic sub-folders when needed which is not really required as every directory i have to use this on already has A to Z in it.  And like I said, it worked fine on Win7 but on Win 10 it just blinks and does nothing.?

200

ContextMenu Commander / Re: ContextMenu Commander

« on: September 13, 2015, 10:57 PM »

      I basically stopped working on Context Menu Commander when I came across FileMenu Tools, which seems like mostly the same idea and is freeware/donationware.
(i meant to quote you from last post, sorry
i clicked that link and it was gone .
I wold sure like to find one that was as easy to delete from as it was to add to.  And offer simple to use logic for creation of actions.
like highlight text send to proper desktop shortcut.  Highlighted html links = desktop web-shortcuts.  Highlighted .exe = shortcut to marked application.
use of check-boxes to select any for multiple removal and use same with drag and drop to allow organization in whatever order best suits the user.

i use right clicks a lot.