Messages

51

Find And Run Robot / Re: alias pastefromfile instead of alias paste

« on: May 08, 2021, 02:22 PM »

I should also mention that if you're looking to paste a lot of different multiline strings then Lintalist is a good standalone tool. The landing page is a bit daunting but it is easy to use once you get going. There's a DC post for it here.

52

Find And Run Robot / Re: alias pastefromfile instead of alias paste

« on: May 08, 2021, 07:51 AM »

Is there an alias that works just like paste %WHATEVER% ... except it takes the contents of %WHATEVER% from a filepath on your local machine?

-dreftymac (May 07, 2021, 04:36 PM)

Not currently I think. FARR does have the built in alias command fileresults which reads the contents of a text file. But I don't recall any FARR method to use what it reads as a variable for a subsequent paste command.

We could ask mouser to add such a variable to FARR though. (It could then be named %lastfileresults%, similar to how the alias command appcap stores its return value in %lastappcap%)

In the meantime you can use an external helper script for this. Here is a simple AutoHotkey example

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. #NoEnv
2. #SingleInstance Force
3. ; read string from textfile and paste in active window
4. FileRead, String, C:\file.txt
5. Clipboard := String
6. Send ^v

Save the script as ReadPaste.ahk and use an alias result line like this

[Select]

read string from .txt and paste in active window | C:\folder\ReadPaste.ahk

A more advanced version could pass a regex pattern from the FARR alias as parameter to the script, for example to select another text file to read and paste from.

53

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: March 23, 2021, 05:11 AM »

Also briefly tested the txt-as-md plugin on a test vault.

-Dormouse (March 19, 2021, 05:00 PM)

That's interesting. I see in https://forum.obsidi...txt-code-etc/1656/50 that there is discussion about two possible features.
1. Have Obsidian read .txt (and other plaintext) files as if markdown (apply markdown styling, and so on)
2. Have Obsidian read .txt as plain plaintext (no markdown styling)

The plugin does 1 AFAICT. But if this gets wings perhaps both 1 and 2 will get implemented, and maybe also a further feature
3. Have Obsidian read files with extension .NNN as some other, perhaps user customized plaintext format that differs from markdown. For example, AsciiDoc.
That is, users would in a config file tell Obsidian to treat filetypes {.md, .txt} as MarkDown, {.asciidoc, .adoc, .asc} as AsciiDoc, and so on.

Obsidian would expand to be a more general system-of-plaintext-notes editor/viewer. Compare to how VS Code is an editor/viewer for code in different programming languages. That ties in with our previous discussions here for/against the markdown format(s) and alternatives to it.

54

Find And Run Robot / Re: displaying expanded user variables in aliases

« on: March 16, 2021, 09:25 AM »

Save to FARR_resolve_alias_variables.ahk (with UTF-8 BOM encoding). Requires AutoHotkey

Will work in most cases, but might fail on complex alias text with e.g. escaped % characters.

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. #NoEnv
2. SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%
3. #SingleInstance force
4. ListLines, Off
5. SetBatchLines, -1
6.  
7. ; FARR_resolve_alias_variables.ahk
8.  
9. ; by Nod5 on 2021-03-16
10.  
11. ; A helper tool for FARR (Find And Run Robot) written in AutoHotkey
12.  
13. ; Reads alias result from active FARR "Edit Group Alias" window
14. ; and resolves (converts) FARR's UserVar variables to text values
15.  
16. ; For example the variable "%uservar.Browser.Chrome%" is replaced
17. ; with e.g. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"
18.  
19. ; How to use:
20. ; Run script and press F8 when FARR Options "Edit Group Alias" window is active
21. ; A MsgBox shows the results lines with resolved UserVars
22.  
23. ; Optional: uncomment lines near end of script to also
24. ; - Copy text to clipboard
25. ; - Write text to .txt file
26.  
27. ; Discussion
28. ;   https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=51199.0
29.  
30.  
31. ; default path to FARR .ini file (edit this filepath if the .ini is in another location)
32. vFarrIni := "C:\Users\" A_UserName "\Documents\DonationCoder\FindAndRunRobot\FindAndRunRobot.ini"
33. return
34.  
35. #IfWinActive, Edit Group Alias ahk_exe FindAndRunRobot.exe ahk_class TAliasForm
36. F8::
37.   if !FileExist(vFarrIni)
38.   {
39.     MsgBox % "Error: FindAndRunRobot.ini not found.`n`nEdit script and add correct path to it."
40.     ExitApp
41.   }
42.   ; get text from results editbox
43.   ControlGetText, vText, TMemo2, A
44.  
45.   ; read UserVar data from FARR .ini
46.   IniRead, vUserVars, % vFarrIni, ExtraSettings, UserVars, %A_Space%
47.  
48.   ; split lines to array
49.   aUserVars := StrSplit(vUserVars, ">n>")
50.  
51.   ; object to store full variable/value pairs
52.   aMap := Object()
53.  
54.   For Key, vLine in aUserVars
55.   {
56.     vLine := TRim(vLine)
57.    
58.     ; skip blank or comment line
59.     if !vLine or (SubStr(vLine, 1, 2) = "//")
60.       continue
61.  
62.     ; [Section]
63.     if RegExMatch(vLine, "^\[(.+)\]$", vMatch)
64.       vSection := vMatch1
65.  
66.     ; if variable line then get variable/value pair and add to map array
67.     ; prefix variable name "uservar." and last found section name (if any)
68.     if RegExMatch(vLine, "U)^(.+)=(.+)$", vMatch)
69.     {
70.       vVarName := "uservar." ( vSection ? vSection "." : "") vMatch1
71.       vValue    := vMatch2
72.       aMap["" vVarName] := vValue
73.     }
74.   }
75.  
76.   ; resolve
77.   For vVarName, vValue in aMap
78.     vText := StrReplace(vText, "%" vVarName "%", vValue) ; replace all
79.  
80.   ; show resolved text
81.   MsgBox % vText
82.  
83.   ; put on clipboard
84.   ;Clipboard := vText
85.  
86.   ; write to .txt file in this script's folder
87.   ;FileAppend, % vText, % A_ScriptDir "\alias_resolved_" A_Now ".txt", UTF-8-RAW
88. return
89. #IfWinActive
90.  
91.  
92. ; ----------------------------
93. ; notes of FARR User Variables (UserVar)
94. ; ----------------------------
95. ;   Used as variables in aliases
96. ;   Set in FARR > Options > Lists > User Variables
97. ;   Stored in FindAndRunRobot.ini
98. ;     Default path C:\Users\<username>\Documents\DonationCoder\FindAndRunRobot\FindAndRunRobot.ini
99.  
100. ; Format in Options "User Variables" pane:
101. ; -----
102. ; TopTest=C:\folder\test.exe
103. ; [SectionName]
104. ; VarName=Value
105. ; VarName2=Value2
106. ; // comment line
107. ;
108. ; [Browser]
109. ; Chrome=C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
110. ; Firefox=C:\b\firefox.exe
111. ; -----
112. ; Note: it is allowed to create variables above the first [Section]
113. ; Note: comments must be on separate lines. Not allowed: VarName=Value //comment
114.  
115. ; -----
116. ; Format in FARR aliases:
117. ; -----
118. ;   %uservar.TopTest%
119. ;   %uservar.SectionName.VarName%
120. ;   %uservar.Browser.Chrome%
121. ; -----
122.  
123. ; -----
124. ; Format in FindAndRunRobot.ini
125. ; -----
126. ; Stored as a single line, ">n>" is linebreak separator
127. ; Example:
128. ; UserVars=TopTest=C:\folder\test.exe>n>[SectionName]>n>VarName=Value>n>VarName2=Value2>n>// comment line>n>>n>[Browser]>n>Chrome=C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe>n>Firefox=C:\b\firefox.exe
129. ; ----------------------------

55

Find And Run Robot / Re: displaying expanded user variables in aliases

« on: March 15, 2021, 11:14 AM »

I don't think FARR has that feature built in, but it would be a useful feature. I have AutoHotkey code that resolves the FARR user variables. I'l clean that up and post here as a helper tool for FARR when I have more time.

56

Coding Snacks / Re: Lightweight App that displays files in folders/subfolders & allows launching

« on: March 15, 2021, 11:10 AM »

Here you go.

-GirkovArpa (March 14, 2021, 08:28 PM)

Neat! I will experiment with that.

57

Coding Snacks / Re: Lightweight App that displays files in folders/subfolders & allows launching

« on: March 14, 2021, 01:49 PM »

Here you go.

-GirkovArpa (March 12, 2021, 11:00 AM)

That looks nice, seems functional for this request.

Off topic: I have come across Sciter a few times before but haven't made anything with it. I see you have a small test repo that transpiles some ahk to sciter here https://github.com/G...ovArpa/ahk-to-sciter . Let me ask: do you know of some Sciter project with AutoHotkey interop, like what is available for Python https://github.com/sciter-sdk/pysciter ?

58

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Pull icon from exe and put on the containing folder

« on: February 11, 2021, 04:39 AM »

Neat idea, so I made an AutoHotkey version with a hotkey and also a command line mode for easy use from FARR.

Uses COM to get the focused file's path more reliably than sending keys to the context menu.
Uses SHGetSetFolderCustomSettings method which makes the new folder icon show immediately, see Microsoft doc.

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. #NoEnv
2. SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%
3. #SingleInstance force
4. ListLines, Off
5. SetBatchLines, -1
6. SetWinDelay, -1
7.  
8. ; SetExplorerFolderIcon.ahk
9. ; 2021-02-11
10. ; by Nod5
11. ; In Explorer press [F8] to set the focused file's first icon as parent folder icon
12. ; -----------------------------------
13. ; Default mode:
14. ;   Select a file in Explorer and press [F8].
15. ;   To close the script right click its tray menu icon and Exit.
16.  
17. ; Command line mode:
18. ;   Pass as parameter a HWND window handle to a specific Explorer window
19. ;   to act on that window's focused file and parent folder.
20. ;
21. ; Optional: use this script from FARR (Find And Run Robot)
22. ;   Create a FARR alias and use this as the result line (modify the path):
23. ;   Set Explorer parent folder icon | C:\some\folder\SetExplorerFolderIcon.ahk %LASTHWND%
24. ; -----------------------------------
25.  
26. ; if parameter is Explorer HWND then act on that window and exit
27. if (vHwnd := A_Args[1])
28. {
29.   if WinExist("ahk_class CabinetWClass ahk_id " vHwnd)
30.     GetFocusedFileSetIcon(vHwnd)
31.   ExitApp
32. }
33. ; else hotkey mode: create Explorer hotkey and await user action
34. else
35. {
36.   Hotkey, IfWinActive, ahk_class CabinetWClass
37.   Hotkey, F8, GetFocusedFileSetIcon
38. }
39. return
40.  
41. GetFocusedFileSetIcon(vHwnd := "")
42. {
43.   vFile := ExplorerGetFocusedFilepath(vHwnd)
44.   if FileExist(vFile)
45.   {
46.     SplitPath, vFile, , vFolder
47.     SetFolderIcon(vFolder, vFile, 0)
48.   }
49. }
50.  
51.  
52. ; function: ExplorerGetFocusedFilepath(vHwnd := "")  v210211
53. ; return filepath of focused item in vHwnd (or active) Explorer window
54. ExplorerGetFocusedFilepath(vHwnd := "")
55. {
56.   vHwnd := vHwnd ? vHwnd : WinActive("A")
57.   if vHwnd and WinExist("ahk_class CabinetWClass ahk_id " vHwnd)
58.     for Window in ComObjCreate("Shell.Application").Windows
59.       if (Window.HWND = vHwnd)
60.         ; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/shellfolderview-focuseditem
61.         return vFile := Window.Document.FocusedItem.Path
62. }
63.  
64.  
65. ; function: SetFolderIcon() update Explorer folder icon in desktop.ini via SHGetSetFolderCustomSettings
66. ; by teadrinker 2017-10-09 https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=174984#p174984
67. ; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/shlobj_core/nf-shlobj_core-shgetsetfoldercustomsettings
68. ; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/shlobj_core/ns-shlobj_core-shfoldercustomsettings
69. SetFolderIcon(folderPath, iconPath, iconIndex)  {
70.    static FCSM_ICONFILE := 0x10, FCS_FORCEWRITE := 0x2
71.    if !A_IsUnicode  {
72.       VarSetCapacity(WiconPath, StrPut(iconPath, "UTF-16")*2, 0)
73.       StrPut(iconPath, &WiconPath, "UTF-16")
74.    }
75.    VarSetCapacity(SHFOLDERCUSTOMSETTINGS, size := 4*5 + A_PtrSize*10, 0)
76.    NumPut(size, SHFOLDERCUSTOMSETTINGS)
77.    NumPut(FCSM_ICONFILE, SHFOLDERCUSTOMSETTINGS, 4)
78.    NumPut(A_IsUnicode ? &iconPath : &WiconPath, SHFOLDERCUSTOMSETTINGS, 4*2 + A_PtrSize*8)
79.    NumPut(iconIndex, SHFOLDERCUSTOMSETTINGS, 4*2 + A_PtrSize*9 + 4)
80.    DllCall("Shell32\SHGetSetFolderCustomSettings", Ptr, &SHFOLDERCUSTOMSETTINGS, WStr, folderPath, UInt, FCS_FORCEWRITE)
81. }
82.  
83. ; -----------------------------------
84. ; notes on desktop.ini files
85. ; -----------------------------------
86. ; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/how-to-customize-folders-with-desktop-ini
87. ; "text file that allows you to specify how a file system folder is viewed."
88. ; See also https://hwiegman.home.xs4all.nl/desktopini.html
89.  
90. ; Format:
91. ; -----
92. ; [.ShellClassInfo]
93. ; IconResource=C:\test\file.exe,0     ; <filepath, icon-index>
94. ; -----
95. ; To remove the custom folder icon delete desktop.ini
96.  
97. ; If we just write the file then the new folder icon does not show immediately (must close/reopen Explorer)
98. ; If we instead use SHGetSetFolderCustomSettings the new icon shows immediately.
99. ; SHGetSetFolderCustomSettings also hides the desktop.ini file.
100. ; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/shlobj_core/nf-shlobj_core-shgetsetfoldercustomsettings
101. ; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/shlobj_core/ns-shlobj_core-shfoldercustomsettings
102. ; AutoHotkey function: SetFolderIcon()
103. ; by Teadrinker 2017-10-09 https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=174984#p174984
104. ; -----------------------------------

59

N.A.N.Y. 2021 / Re: NANY 2021: MoveFileHere

« on: January 18, 2021, 01:21 PM »

I seem to get error messages no matter what I do

-tomos (January 17, 2021, 06:16 PM)

Ok, sorry that it isn't working. That error message points to the a step in the code that uses COM to loop over all open File Explorer windows. It seems to find a File Explorer window but crash when that window's handle is accessed. I don't know what is causing that error though, I'm not able to reproduce it on any PC I have tried. It is also a pretty commonly used method in AutoHotkey scripts and I haven't found similar errors reported in the AHK forums. Guessing: maybe related to Win 10 security permissions settings or a conflict with some other app or script that is running on your computer but not on mine. If you have another Win 10 computer at hand you could try it there, to help narrow down the issue.

60

N.A.N.Y. 2021 / Re: NANY 2021: MoveFileHere

« on: January 17, 2021, 10:31 AM »

Hi tomos, thanks for testing.

1) (minor) it doesnt recognise that the Download folder has been moved from it's default location (the new location is recognised correctly by File Explorer and Vivaldi). I edited the ini file to point to correct folder, so no real problem here

-tomos (January 16, 2021, 05:14 PM)

Yes, that's a design choice, to keep the code simple.

2) When I press F7, the name of the file to be moved shows as a tool tip type message (near the mouse pointer) but nothing is moved. If I click on the message I get this error:

-tomos (January 16, 2021, 05:14 PM)

After pressing F7 the user accepts the move with Enter, Space or Left Click. (To cancel Esc, F7 again or wait and it times out.) I documented that on GitHub, will add that to the first post here too.

The error you describe is a bug but I haven't found a way to reproduce it yet. It could be an issue with file permissions or Windows 10 security (partially) blocking the exe, hard to say.

If you have time to test more:

• Change the source folder location in the .ini again, to something other than the browser's download folder. Does moving files from that folder work?
• Try running the .ahk source file directly instead of the .exe (assuming you have AutoHotkey installed). Does that work?

61

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« on: January 04, 2021, 04:07 AM »

So it worked quite well, with negligible perceived lag!

-wraith808 (January 02, 2021, 10:04 PM)

Great, thanks for the details.

I used USB Camera Pro - Connect EasyCap or USB WebCam

-wraith808 (January 02, 2021, 10:04 PM)

Good find. Though this is such a neat way to reuse old devices that I wish Google adds its own USB webcam functionality for it to Android. Also wishing Raspberry Pi OS came with some send-HDMI-over-USB functionality to make the converter hardware redundant.

62

Living Room / Re: My new project is now live: Co-op For Two on YouTube

« on: January 02, 2021, 03:10 PM »

Great job mouser - video, audio, the conversations!  Co-op games is a good niche to cover. I see that your videos already appear on some game pages on Board Game Geek,e.g. https://boardgamegee...-missions/videos/all , which I think is a good way for people to find you. What's the process for getting listed there - do you add each manually there or does BGG find and add them automatically?

63

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« on: January 02, 2021, 02:52 PM »

I ordered the capture card and the converter cable, and they should be here on Sunday.  I'll try it and see how that goes before looking into any other options.

-wraith808 (December 31, 2020, 10:23 PM)

Keen to hear how well it works. Including which Android app to use - there are a few in the in Google Play and some appear to show ads.

64

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« on: December 31, 2020, 05:24 AM »

I think you need to look for something that implements the WiFi Display protocol (MiraCast), for example MiracleCast.

-4wd (December 30, 2020, 08:02 PM)

Interesting! Have you used it? I hope these kind of tools evolve to open, near turnkey, inexpensive two-part wireless hardware kits: plug in a caster/sender device to the PC or Raspberry HDMI out port and plug in the receiver to either the HDMI in port on a display/TV or to USB OTG on an old android phone/tablet (maybe flashed with a custom ROM) and shazam: wireless screen over direct Wi-Fi. Pair them by temporarily connecting a cable from receiver to sender and press a hardware button. Bonus feature would be to allow multiple simultaneous receiver devices for one sender device.

65

Find And Run Robot / Re: A similar function to Listary's Quick Switch function?

« on: December 31, 2020, 04:56 AM »

I made a small tool for NANY2021, MoveFileHere, and it can be seen as an alternative method compared to parts of the Listary feature discussed in this thread. MoveFileHere helps a workflow where we make the browser always save/download files to a fixed Downloads folder and then use a hotkey quickly move the file to another File Explorer folder afterwards. Compare that to the workflow of quickly picking a custom folder for each download using Listary or the small SaveAsPathHelper script I made upthread to mimic some Listary features.

66

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« on: December 30, 2020, 10:48 AM »

The little HDMI to USB webcam adapter looks very useful! Hackaday wrote about it recently too
https://hackaday.com...pture-device-around/
with link to a video review that covers latency https://www.youtube....56&v=daS5RHVAl2U
Only problem seems to be that there are several similar products on Amazon et al but quality can be hit or miss.

67

N.A.N.Y. 2021 / NANY 2021: MoveFileHere

« on: December 30, 2020, 10:09 AM »

Application Name	MoveFileHere
Version	2022-01-09
Short Description	AutoHotkey tool to quickly move newest file from Downloads to the active File Explorer folder in Windows 10.
Supported OSes	Windows 10
Web Page	https://github.com/nod5/MoveFileHere
Download Link	Standalone EXE file  https://github.com/n...oveFileHere/releases AHK source file   https://github.com/n...ain/MoveFileHere.ahk

Description
A very small hotkey tool that I use all the time, now released for NANY in case other people also often move files soon after downloading them and find the sequence Right click, Click "Show in folder", Ctrl+X, Alt+Tab Tab Tab, Ctrl+V way too long . With MoveFileHere you press F7 to move the latest downloaded file to the active Explorer folder. The hotkey and folder can be changed in settings. Copy and rename MoveFileHere.exe to e.g. MoveFileHere2.exe to set up multiple hotkeys and folders.
See GitHub README for more details.

Note: antivirus tools may incorrectly flag the AutoHotkey compiled .exe file. You can always install AutoHotkey and then compile MoveFileHere yourself from the .ahk source file or simply run the .ahk source directly.

MoveFileHere helps a workflow where we make the browser always download to a fixed Downloads folder and then quickly move the file elsewhere afterwards. Compare that to the workflow of quickly picking a custom download/save folder for each download using Listary or the small SaveAsPathHelper script I quickly made to mimic some Listary features.

After pressing F7 the user accepts the move with Enter, Space or Left Click. To instead cancel the move press Esc, F7 again or wait 2 seconds.

68

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: December 05, 2020, 04:01 AM »

Another issue is how well the editor/program integrates into a system where there are many types of files. Again I don't think any of them are great for doing this.

-Dormouse (December 04, 2020, 07:24 PM)

Yeah, there is a lot of friction to overcome there. I have an AutoHotkey script setup: I put no-markup filepaths or filenames in the plaintext notes. Later I select a whole or part of such a string (or put the cursor inside it) and press a hotkey. The script detects if there is a unique file anywhere matching the string pattern and takes action depending on filetype. E.g. open PDF in pdf viewer, open source code file in VS Code and so on. If multiple files match action alternatives are shown. If no file is matched alternatives to open up a file search in Everything or do a Google search are shown. Since this works on any text selection anywhere I can use the same approach across different apps, local or web based. For example I use it also in notes written in Google Docs, in effect links from Docs to the local filesystem. I considered making it a NANY tool this year but the thing is still evolving and is very tied to my own note taking setup and how I tend to use the target files, so difficult to make into a more general application yet. But I think this kind of customizable inbetween tool is the best option, since it is unlikely that any specific note taking app will also be a best fit for how you want to deal with various other types of files.

69

General Software Discussion / Re: Automatic text software for Windows

« on: November 29, 2020, 04:51 AM »

Lintalist is a great tool for that https://lintalist.github.io/ . Free and open source.

There is a DC forum thread about it here https://www.donation...x.php?topic=41475.25 and also a thread in the AutoHotkey forums if you have questions.

70

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR mini weather report from wttr.in

« on: November 24, 2020, 05:53 PM »

Cool idea, but wouldn't it be easier to have the weather be shown in the results?
something like an alias with htmlviewurl https://wttr.in/london?format=%c+%t+%C in the results?

-skajfes (November 24, 2020, 05:45 AM)

Then the emoji did not show correctly when I tested it - see note at the end of my post. But works for only text/numbers.

71

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR search folders restriction syntax to exclude all folders?

« on: November 24, 2020, 03:09 AM »

I wanted to exclude folders in this particular case because the search folder is used in an alias that also has an alias action to do "showfilehtml" (previous thread). Then folders are of no use in the results list. Or worse: FARR freezes on my PC if the "showfilehtml" action is by accident done on a folder result. Not sure if that is a general issue or something with my setup though.

-Nod5 (November 23, 2020, 04:12 PM)

Answering myself, there does seem to be a general issue/bug with FARR (or IE in FARR) there. To reproduce create this alias
name: showfilehtml_test
regex: ^(h:) (.+)$
result: showfilehtml $$2
and create an empty folder "C:\testing" and type "h: C:\testing" in FARR.
FARR will show an Explorer like view of the empty folder and after a few seconds freezes. Sometimes FARR shows an error message and closes its process. Other times the FARR process must be closed manually. If this is a general thing then maybe prevent showfilehtml from acting on folders? Though still possible that this varies with some underlying IE settings.

72

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR search folders restriction syntax to exclude all folders?

« on: November 23, 2020, 04:12 PM »

hmm this is a good question.. Let me go look at the code.. If there isn't an easy way to do what you want I will add it; I was doing some little tweaks to FARR today so I can finally work on it a bit.

-mouser (November 23, 2020, 03:04 PM)

Hi mouser, great! A bit of context: I wanted to exclude folders in this particular case because the search folder is used in an alias that also has an alias action to do "showfilehtml" (previous thread). Then folders are of no use in the results list. Or worse: FARR freezes on my PC if the "showfilehtml" action is by accident done on a folder result. Not sure if that is a general issue or something with my setup though.

73

Find And Run Robot / FARR search folders restriction syntax to exclude all folders?

« on: November 22, 2020, 04:59 AM »

This may have been solved before but I didn't find it with search just now.

In FARR settings the search folders page has a field for restricting what to search in the folder.
How do we restrict the search to not show any folders? That is, the search results should show files in the specified folder and in its subfolders, but should not show the subfolders themselves.



We can include file extensions with "txt;pdf;md" and exclude file extensions with "-mp4;mkv;avi".

But the on screen help text says nothing about folders. Nor does the help page https://www.donation...lp/searchfolders.htm Is there a syntax for that field to exclude folders? ( 2009 thread requested such syntax. )

I tried "-\" and "-\\" but neither worked.

If the search folder modifier keyword is used in an alias together with dosearch then one workaround is to add "-\" in the alias result line (or manually in the searchbox) to exclude folders. Or alternatively "+." to only include files. Helpfile page on that.

That workaround excludes folders, with one exception it seems: the base folder for the search folder settings is still included. For example in the screenshot above the base folder would be "C:\FARR\farr-tldr". But I noticed that if we in the alias instead add "-\\" (two slashes instead of one) then the base folder is also excluded. Though that seems undocumented behaviour.

74

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Can we embed short MP4 animation inline in post?

« on: November 20, 2020, 08:37 AM »

Follow up post to the above GIF tests. This FFmpeg oneliner has nice results

[Select]

ffmpeg -y -i file.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v]fps=10,split[v0][v1];[v0]palettegen[plt];[v1][plt]paletteuse" file.gif

(212 kB)
To my eyes it looks less grainy than the earlier GIFs from imgur and cloudconvert, at a pretty small filesize cost.

Found here https://stackoverflow.com/a/60041579 , and the doc page is https://ffmpeg.org/f...rs.html#palettegen-1

We can also shave off a few extra kB by going down to fps=5 with similar output quality.

75

Find And Run Robot / FARR mini weather report from wttr.in

« on: November 19, 2020, 11:55 AM »

Wttr is a fun and fast URL based command line weather report tool.
Background and syntax here https://github.com/chubin/wttr.in

This post describes how to show wttr weather as text directly in the FARR searchbox.



Step 1. create a FARR alias
name: weather
regex: ^(weath|weat|wea)$
result: weather | appcap "C:\folder\FARR_weather_helper.exe"

Step 2. prepare helper AutoHotkey script
- Save code to C:\folder\FARR_weather_helper.ahk
- Modify the wttr URL in the code: which location? what data to show? language? extra text?
- Compile the script to an .exe file (necessary since FARR's appcap doesn't work if we run .ahk scripts uncompiled, it seems)

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. #NoEnv
2. #SingleInstance force
3. SetBatchLines, -1
4.  
5. ; FARR_weather_helper.ahk
6. ; 2020-11-19 by Nod5
7. ; helper script to show weather from wttr.in in FARR searchbox
8. ; wttr details and syntax at https://github.com/chubin/wttr.in
9.  
10. ; prepare wttr URL (must escape each % character with `)
11. vUrl := "https://wttr.in/london?format=`%c+`%t+`%C"
12. ; example output: ☀️ +9°C Sunny
13.  
14. ; download weather page to variable
15. vString := urlDownloadToVar(vUrl)
16.  
17. ; replace FARR searchbox string with weather string via clipboard paste
18. ; clipboard pastes all at once so won't trigger other aliases
19. vBackup := ClipboardAll
20. Clipboard := vString
21. Send ^a^v
22. sleep 500
23. Clipboard := vBackup
24. vBackup := ""
25. ExitApp
26.  
27.  
28. ; function: dowload URL and return it as variable
29. UrlDownloadToVar(url, raw :=0)
30. {
31.   ; prefix https:// if not found
32.   if( !regExMatch(url,"i)https?://") )
33.     url := "https://" url
34.   try
35.   {
36.     hObject:=ComObjCreate("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
37.     hObject.Open("GET",url)
38.     hObject.Send()
39.     return raw ? hObject.ResponseBody : hObject.ResponseText
40.   }catch err{
41.       MsgBox % err.message
42.   }
43.   return 0
44. }

Alternatives
Here are some alternative ways to use wttr in FARR

• Load the wttr URL as embedded webpage in FARR
• Run a script to get the URL weather text and show as a FARR results line via appcapresults
• Run a script to get the URL weather text and show it in FARR searchbox via FARR's command line parameter -search

But in all these three cases FARR does not show the unicode weather emoji correctly.
However wttr also has options for richer output formats such as multiline or even mapped weather reports as .png images, and that could probably look quite nice in FARR's HTML view.